


The GIFT

by Mooncatx



Category: X-Men (Comicverse)
Genre: BDSM, Bondage, Cutting, Dominance, Emma getting owned, F/F, Hellfire Club, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Just so much stuff, Knifeplay, Rape/Non-con Elements, Rough Sex, Sex, Spanking, Storm owning her dominance, Submission, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-07
Updated: 2018-05-07
Packaged: 2019-05-03 18:38:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14575149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mooncatx/pseuds/Mooncatx
Summary: Set after comic story line Chasing Hellfire - Claremont style X-men taken to the next level.  Sage has left the X-men to re-join the Hellfire Club.  However Tessa doesn't want to break ties, but build them.  X-men Leader Storm is invited to enjoy the sweetest fruit that the Hellfire, by way of Sage, can offer.  Emma Frost the White Queen is offered up as a GIFT.  Storm may have in any way she desires.  In ALL ways she desires.  The sole limit is death or permanent harm.  Welcome to the Hellfire Club, Storm.  Hope Emma Frost survives the experience!  This is my explicit love letter to the characters Storm and White Queen, and my writing idol Chris Claremont.  Please enjoy.  Also, please leave comments.  They are my fuel.  More fuel, more writing.  Right now my passion is Overwatch, but I'm always ripe for temptation (^_~) mcx





	The GIFT

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, there are typos. Sorry, I'll fix them later. I'm working on Overwatch fictions right now and they have most of my attention. Yeah, they have typos too. You want stories or perfection? I can do one or the other, and I prefer to work on more story than getting all the letters right, sorry (not sorry)... This story I actually wrote more than a decade ago, when I was on a X-men femslash mailing list. The original posts still in Yahoo Groups. heh... I did a lot of short fics, this was my one truly long fic. There is more actually, but the next chapter was unfinished and I am really thinking chapter 16 ends at a really nice spot. But, eh... you never know.

**The Gift**  
MooncatX

 

chapter 1

The New York chapter of the infamous Hellfire Club was celebrating the re-opening of its traditional seat of operations. To most, the multi-storied building, now newly repaired and remodeled after the string of unfortunate events that had led to it's previous state of ruin, was simply an exercise of hedonistic excess. Here, where the world's wealthiest and most powerful came to play, in private rooms safe from prying eyes, they also brokered the secret deals which set policy and pulled the financial strings of nations. It was the epitome of a rich man's club, where it was rumored every pleasurable vice was catered to, and nothing was forbidden for those who attained the enviable status of the Lords Cardinal.

And while these things were certainly true, it barely scratched the surface of what the Hellfire Club truly was. If there was any one person who truly understood the scope of the Hellfire Club's clandestine purposes, or the full reach of it's influence, it was the dark haired woman who sat with a quiet, regal grace in one of the elegant private salons that was set aside just for her own use. As the personal aide for the reigning Lord Cardinal and Black King, the woman known as Tessa held considerable power even without a recognizable rank. Tessa was also known as Sage, a code name that alluded to her vast store of knowledge and the uncanny ability she had to access and evaluate it, like a living supercomputer. Sage was a mutant, whose special abilities made her a dangerous and valuable resource to those who could claim her loyalty. Unfortunately, for many who'd once thought the lovely young woman was firmly set in their camp, Sage's loyalty was a deeply hidden truth known to none but herself. Hellfire Club and X-men both had felt the sting of betrayal as her allegiance to either and both had shifted from one to the other without warning.

It was mindful of Tessa's proven capacity for treachery that had the coolly beautiful blonde woman on watchful edge as she reclined in the offered seat across from her one time companion. Emma Frost, who herself was once the White Queen of the Hellfire Club and through some truly ironic twists of fate was now one of the X-men, had been surprised to receive a personal invitation to come and speak with Tessa. Though they had been close acquaintances when both were members in the Hellfire Club, their relationship had been for the greater part coolly formal, save for those rare few times when need had required them to be very … intimate. An unexpected flush of warmth from memories Emma had thought long put aside crept through her. The Hellfire Club expected sensual excess from its leading members, and as the White Queen, Emma had played her role with consummate skill that had made her legendary. At times that legend had included the services of Shaw's personal aide, in ways that would have brought a blush to Emma's cheeks if she were still capable of such displays.

But that had been another time, another life. When Tessa had finally revealed herself an X-men agent, long ago planted by Charles Xavier to spy upon the Hellfire Club, and returned to the Xavier Institute in Westchester, the X-men base of operations, Emma had already made her own switch of allegiance and thrown herself headlong into the role of headmistress to a new generation of X-men affiliated youth at what had once been the Massachusetts Academy, reborn as Xavier's new School For Gifted Youngsters. In that strangely more innocent time, their paths had not re-crossed, and Emma now wondered at that, and suspected that Tessa had deliberately avoided contact with her fellow former Hellfire Club member. Not that Emma herself had gone out of her way to try and initiate any contact… Emma pushed what might have been regret from her mind. Now was not the time to reminisce on might have beens.

It was only some little time ago that she and Tessa had finally met up again, when the rogue team of X-men that Storm had splintered off from Xavier had attempted to appropriate one of Emma's students in their pursuit of a mutant murderer. That meeting had been much less than cordial. Their adversarial encounter had ended with Emma and Storm together attempting a rescue of Tessa, Bishop, and a group of young mutant children that had been captured by an old and dangerous enemy that Emma hadn't even realize she had. Said rescue had gone wrong almost at once, though to the detriment of Emma's pride, Storm had won out in the end while she herself had fallen to the enemy with terrifying completeness and speed. It had shaken her to the core to realize that the creature known as Elias Bogan had mental hooks set so deeply into her psyche, which she had never suspected. Strangely, it was Storm who'd offered her some measure of comfort afterwards, swearing to find out how such a thing had come to pass. That in itself held it's own unsettling implications for Emma, as the once sharp lines between enemy and ally began to waver and blur.

"Emma, I'm pleased you came." Tessa's voice was cool, soothing silk, the trained voice of a Hellfire Club employee whose smooth tones were meant to convey pleasant and professional service.

"How could I refuse such a enticing invitation?" Emma's own voice held a razor fine edge of sarcasm in it's well bred, New England nuances. The notice that had summoned her had been terse, almost an order. She'd considered simply ignoring Tessa's demand, but her own begetting demon of curiosity had won out. Tessa, Sage… or whatever the black haired minx was calling herself now, knew too much, had seen too much to disregard out of hand. And it preyed upon Emma's peace of mind, what little she had these days, that Tessa's game was too subtle and deep a thing to let play out with investigation. "I'd be flattered that I was the one X-men you sought out as an envoy between Xavier's Institute and the Hellfire Club, except that I have a feeling I may be the only one who does not currently look at you as a social pariah. I hear Storm still refuses to speak with you, even though you've called her a dozen times or more.

"As past events have shown, lack of well established lines of communication between X-men have led to often disastrous consequences." Tessa's voice was still calm, but the shadow dark blue of her eyes seemed to deepen at Storm's name. "Twice Elias Bogan has had the benefit of setting different groups of X-men against each other, advancing his own cause while those who should be allies wasted time in unnecessary opening conflicts."

"And that has what to do with the Hellfire Club, darling Tessa?" Emma tilted her head in question as her ice blue eyes narrowed. "Or have you forgotten you are no longer an active X-men?"

"I forget nothing." Tessa's eyes caught those of the former White Queen with an almost chilling intensity. "But our current Lord Cardinal, Roberto Da Costa is also head of X-Corp, and he and I are not the only members of the Hellfire Club who have been X-men, or X-men who are Hellfire Club members. There is quite a bit of cross pollination between the two groups, and it would serve us all well if we had protocols in place for the eventual joint crisis we both know will arise."

"We've played such games of alliance before Tessa. When Magneto held both the Hellfire Club's kingship and a crucial place amongst the X-men. It was such a transitory event that someone blinking would have missed it." Emma's softly drawled derision was deliberately provoking, but it only brought a slight smile to Tessa's enigmatic face.

"Because it was based on one man's fleeting memberships, instead of a true establishment of deep relations between organizations. X-men and Hellfire Club have their differences, but the world has become too dangerous for us to continue the petty competitions for the same resources in those times we should be working jointly. It's not only inefficient; it is inevitable that it will one day prove fatal."

"Inefficient. Ah Tessa, you've never really changed, not deep down at your core, have you? All cool ordered computations where a heart should beat." Emma's tone of patronization did not veil the true interest in her eyes. Despite her demeanor of cruel, dilettante disaffection, she did not discount the true worth of Tessa's proposal. "So how would you suggest we establish real, deep and abiding links between the X-men and the Hellfire Club? Storm was your own team leader with the X-men, and she's not even willing to take a phone call from you now."

"Storm has a very passionate nature, and right now she's angry with me." Tessa acknowledged, "But I think I've found the perfect peace offering, a gift that will calm her enough to work out our differences."

"Really? And what could that possibly be?" Emma's laugh lit up her face as she shook her head at Tessa in scornful disbelief. "Ororo is the last person on the planet that I'd expect could be simply bought off, no matter how fine a prize you might present her with."

"Even if that prize is you?" Tessa's finely arched eyebrow rose suggestively as she watched the laughter drain from Emma to be replaced with a expression of speechless shock. 

chapter 2

The room was large, if by no means the arena like dimensions of the notorious X-men training area called "the Danger Room." Though more modest in size, the room held far more critical things in common with the facility it was based upon. Shi'ar technology, the advanced science of an intergalactic empire that the X-men had several encounters with, had been provided to Charles Xavier, the one time consort to Empress Lilandra of the Shi'ar. That technology had allowed the X-men to create the most enviable of training environments, a small dominion of space where any customized setting from primeval jungle to science fiction spacescape could be reproduced with astounding realism. Solid light holographic projections that would put to shame a master illusionist could bring any fantasy to vibrant tactile life.

The X-men used their "Danger Room" to battle countless faux foes and face down epic, yet ultimately contrived peril and jeopardy. There they could battle fiercely against the very hosts of hell, yet remain secure from true harm by the installed safety protocols. The Hellfire Club's newest addition was meant for more intensely private and personal use, where the true threats in the heart of the fantasy would come the room's patrons, and not the room itself. One might think it's more cheerful and appealing appellation meant this smaller facility was for more kind and gentle purpose than it's X-men counterpart, but like all things Hellfire, what seems the most innocuous was often the most hazardous of all. No one was more keenly aware of this truth than the woman garbed in a familiar white costume as she paced the confines of the "Pleasure Room."

"How did I let myself be talked into this?" Emma's words were half mutter, half groan. Sage had been too clever by half at using long standing debts against the former White Queen, but it was that extra appeal to her covetous nature that had provided the final push. To be no longer owing, but owed by the black haired cyberpath had been a heady thought… before the full weight of what Tessa was asking her to endure had fully dawned on Emma. The costume had been the first indication of how far Tessa planned to take her machinations. The corset top of soft, supple leather was a white so pure it nearly glowed against Emma's own fair skin. Tessa had taken it upon herself to cinch tight the laces, making sure the corset's confining embrace would press Emma's captive flesh to the point of breathlessness, until the trembling swell of cupped breasts that were so aggressively thrust forward threatened to spill past the costume's confines.

The brief white triangle that was the bikini bottom covered her sex, and scarce anything else. Matching white thigh high boots actually covered more flesh the rest of her outfit combined. Sleek white leather that smoothed snug over long, sleek legs, and ended in wickedly high spiked heels. It was almost her old White Queen costume, sans the rich, fur trimmed cape, and without the opera gloves that she'd always felt added a touch of elegance to an otherwise blatantly erotic ensemble. The only touch of color to Emma's outfit was the red jewel set in the collar Tessa had added as a final touch. It's crystalline glow like a drop of living blood at her throat was more than decorative, the jewel and collar laid Emma far more bare than the scant leather costume. Again the telepath tried to scan for any thoughts other than her own. Again, the faint throb that using her power gave her was the only result. How it galled her that she'd allowed Tessa to collar her with an inhibitor device. How had she let herself be manipulated so? The argument over the details of their agreement had twisted in and out like a snake, and somehow she'd let her challenged pride overcome her common sense… worse, her keenly honed sense of self preservation. She should walked out the moment Tessa had made this part of the scenario. But she hadn't… Emma's fists clenched, the manicured tips of her nails biting into her palms. Why hadn't she just walked away? Even though Tessa had coded the device to deactivate if Emma spoke her safe word, the feeling of utter vulnerability of being even temporarily shriven of her mutant powers made her shiver. Ah… now she remembered…

"I know you Emma, once Storm begins to get rough with you, your instinctive reaction to use your power will kick in." Tessa's calm and reasonable tone had made Emma want to grit her teeth. Did the cyberpath not realize just how outrageous her statement was? "And let's face it, with your tempestuous nature, keeping control of your primal responses has never been your strongest suit. You'd either be in diamond form before you'd even realize it, or worse, trying to dominate her mind. Wear the collar. It will curb your abilities just enough that you won't be using them out of sheer reflex."

"You are mad, Tessa. You can't expect me to put myself at Storm's mercy without my powers!" Emma's ice blue eyes burned, "That woman hates me with the very core of her being. I could be ash and cinders from a lightening strike before the session even begins."

"You forget how well I can read you Emma, you don't really believe she'd do true harm to someone unable to defend herself." Tessa's slight smile mocked the blonde woman's passionate protests, "Why don't you admit the real reason you are afraid to face Storm without your diamond or psychic armor?"

"Please! As if I'm afraid of that white haired weather witch! Even if she doesn't take advantage of having me in a state of weakness, self righteous prig that she is…, " Emma's voice trailed off into a soft growl. Then, with a sigh of exasperation, she let the smooth fall of her blonde hair slide back over her shoulders as she raised her chin with an imperious arrogance, "Tessa , it's simply just a waste of our time to spend a session together, especially here of all places. She'll no doubt waste it all preaching at me about morals and ethics and how I lack either. Why should I allow you to deprive me of my powers just so she can lecture me to death?"

"If all you fear is being lectured, what will it matter if you use the collar? It's merely a precaution, since your safe word will disable the collar if there is a true, real need arises. Unless…" Tessa's voice warmed with a delicate derision, "You so totally lack self control you can't even get through a harsh lecture without using your safe word. My, how the once might White Queen has fallen."

Emma's glare could have peeled paint. "The day I need to use my safe word with the likes of Storm is the day I'd let you put the whip to me, Tessa darling."

"Is that supposed to be an incentive?" Tessa's teeth shone whitely as her smile turned from sly to feral. "I'll match you then. If you can last an entire session wearing the collar without giving Storm your safeword, I will give you a marker to redeem as you see fit. I know you value my skills."

"You are mad." Emma's eyes widened at Tessa's offer, then narrowed, "But I'll take that wager. You are selling yourself far too cheaply, but I'm not one to disdain a bargain."

"In the meantime you will no doubt benefit from the humbling feeling of vulnerability the collar will give you." Tessa's voice grew crisp as the final accord of their bargain was set into place.

And then suddenly, Emma wondered if she'd gotten such a bargain after all…

The electric hum of the Pleasure Room's entrance sliding open broke Emma's reverie and she tensed, waiting for what was to come.

 

chapter 3

 

"…a Danger Room!" Storm's strong exclamation resounded through the doorway, the displeasure clear in her voice as was the bitter edge of accusation. "Now I begin to see why the others thought it was so necessary for me to come and tour the new Hellfire Club building. What else have you purloined from the X-men for your Hellfire Club masters, Sage? Maybe you'd care to share the going price on betrayal these days."

"Ultimately, Storm, the price paid for anything of true value is counted in dearest coin." Tessa's voice followed with a serene lack of shame. "True, I may have appropriated a few things you consider X-men property, but some special prizes I've merely reclaimed for those they were meant for all along."

They entered tandem, Storm unexpectedly in civilian garb. Apparently the X-men team leader had decided on discretion for her visit. Emma had at Tessa's advice, suggested to the X-men that Storm should accept the standing invitation to tour the Hellfire Club's new facilities, arguing that greater the knowledge the X-men had of their oft time adversaries, the better. Storm's great reluctance had eventually been overcome after enough subtle digs that she was throwing away a gift-wrapped opportunity to gain a practical advantage because her feelings were hurt over Tessa's defection. Since Emma was the one who'd originated the provoking insinuations, she hadn't exactly endeared herself to the now rather vexed Storm.

Emma had to admit Storm looked good in the chic ensemble she'd chosen for her visit. The X-men as a whole did tend to clean up well, and Storm would always be outstanding by any standard. The heavy silken fall of her uniquely silver white mane was caught up in rare upswept style. The silvery frame of hair was drawn away from the elegant oval of Storm's face with a sleek severity and caught and held in an attractive chignon by a beautiful pair of ornate metal spikes. Her dress was a clinging sleeveless sheath of metallic toned dark grey silk. The floor length fall of shimmering cloth was slit high on each side, providing a gratifying display of beautifully toned café au lait leg while ensuring the woman wearing the dress would have full range of movement. It was no accident that if need be, Storm could fight in that dress. She was clearly on her guard. Woman or dress were well worth a second glance on their own, together the combination was nothing less than devastating. Though Emma was loath to admit it, the effect was not completely lost on her. Storm was truly one of the most intensely stunning females in existence, curse her weather witch eyes.

Tessa was in a black Hellfire Club corset that was the casual risqué standard for female members, but the black leather pants that fed into equally ebon calf high boots showed Tessa possessed the rare privilege of wearing as much or as little as she pleased. Emma's own sense of near nakedness took a keener edge as she measured the differences between them now. She had gained the right to dress to her mood after attaining the rank of White Queen, though she often wore the more traditional attire, it had been her choice to do so. She'd long ago made peace with any feelings of shame or embarrassment the Hellfire Club provocative costumes evoked; still… it had been some time since she'd donned this brief a version of her Hellfire attire. Tessa had chosen the costume for this deep game of hers, and though Emma would be damned before she'd show it, relinquishing even this much control made her… uneasy.

Now, finally facing Storm's startled, wide eye'd stare, Emma was acutely aware of how control had been stripped away from her on many levels, and her safe word pulsed in her mouth like a warm, living thing. One word, and she could end this farce before it could even begin… Storm's cat like blue eyes blazed with suspicion and the air grew sharp with the scent of ozone. Emma could feel the build of static electricity in the air shiver over her skin and bit back a gasp of alarm. The blonde woman's gaze shifted to Tessa, and took in the subtle smile barely curving the cyberpath's lips. Of course… the black haired schemer would win no matter what happened. Tessa stood to gain something in any eventuality, unless Storm was the one to walk away. Swallowing both her safe word and her skittishness, Emma waited to see how things would unfold.

"What is the meaning of this?" Storm's normally melodious voice was harsh, as she demanded answers from her former teammate. Her exotically pale gaze smoldered with a complex mix of emotions, not the least was distrust, and a certain feral contempt. "Why is **_she_** here!"

Something in Emma bristled at Storm's clear disdain. Who did Ororo Munroe thinks she was to cast such haughty condemnations with her eyes? The blonde woman's stance shifted in response to the pure alpha aggressiveness in the African woman's exotic eyes as they raked over her with a burning intensity. Emma's hips tilted into a more defiant cant as her shoulders went back and her chin went up with an equal mien of arrogance. She was not some milk water maiden to be cowed with just a look!

"This is the Hellfire Club, darling." Emma's words purred out with sweet, silken threat, "Where else would you expect to find the White Queen?"

"Followed Tessa's lead and returned to type, Emma?" The room's temperature dropped to a startling chill that matched Storm's glare. Despite state of the art climate control that should have kept the room at comfortable warmth, misty trails of vapor accented each of her damning words, "I should have known you couldn't withstand the rigors of being an X-men. Hellfire Club members seem to lack the fortitude."

"Peace, Storm." Tessa's laid a light hand on the woman's shoulder, "Emma hasn't left the X-men, but if you would like to test the limits of her fortitude, you have an ideal opportunity before you." Storm's piercing gaze snapped to her one time teammate with an intensity that would have staggered a lesser person, but Tessa did not fall back, or remove her deceptively gentle grip.

"I know you are displeased with my decision to return to the Hellfire Club." The dark haired cyberpath met Storm's baleful stare with her own rich indigo regard, "But that choice shouldn't break the ties of friendship we share."

Their gaze locked for long moments that lay fraught with unspoken emotion, until finally the X-men leader turned away. "This is so wrong, Tessa." The glacial chill slowly bled away from Storm's face to be reveal the underlying hurt and confusion, "We trusted you. _I_ trusted you. How could you turn away from us for _this_?" Her hands gestured widely, "The Hellfire Club. Beneath it's trappings of wealth and power is the steady reek of corruption. I know you Tessa, or I thought I did. I could have sworn the superficial things the Hellfire Club offers mean nothing to you. Am I wrong? Was my judgment so flawed?"

"Storm…" Tessa exhaled her one time teammate's name quietly, as soft as a sigh of entreaty, "Before you condemn what the Hellfire Club in its entirety, you should sample some of what it has to offer." She held up a finger to forestall the automatic rejection on Storm's lips, "Or more correctly, what _I_ can offer on it's behalf. The X-men and Hellfire Club need not always be at odds. And the fruits of alliance can be… surprisingly sweet."

Storm studied the dark haired woman's face. Sage's trademark cool composure gave nothing away, but the gleam in her dark blue eyes made unsettling promises.

"What could you possibly offer that could convince me of that?" Storm's voice grew hard as she turned from Tessa, and with a suppressed start, found herself staring into Emma Frost's oddly apprehensive gaze. She'd forgotten the other woman's presence, but now face to face with the woman who had once violated her on the most intimate level of mind, body, and soul, Storm's feelings of passionate outrage surged forward once more. There were unsettled matters between them still, and fellow X-men now or no, Storm would not easily forgive such primal transgressions.

"Haven't you guessed yet, my friend?" Tessa's voice held an unusual lilt of amusement.

Storm frowned, confused. What the devil was Sage hinting at? And why was Emma, of all people here? Tessa, fount of knowledge that she was, well knew the tense history between them… And then it became impossibly clear to her.

"As a gesture of good will, on behalf of the Hellfire Club, I give to you, Emma Grace Frost. Please don't kill her." Tessa's announcement confirmed Storm's most outrageous suspicion, "Otherwise, feel free to make whatever use of her as you will. The Pleasure Room is completely at your disposal until such time as you are completely satisfied with your… gift."

"Tessa!" Storm's initial outburst was expected.

…

"I accept."

 

chapter 4

 

Tessa's lips curved in a rare, full smile as she observed Storms complete attention focus on Emma, and the slightly dazed look in her pale blue eyes. The former White Queen hadn't **_really_** believed the upstanding X-men team leader would accept, not in her innermost heart. It was partly why Tessa had been able to gain Emma's compliance with only a modest amount of finessing. But Emma hadn't had the privilege of being close to Ororo for the past few years as Sage had, nor witnessed the deep toll taken by Storms lengthy captivity as both the premiere gladiator and personal slave to the pathologically insane mutant known as Masque.

Storm had been lost far too long in the underground of mutant arena games, subjected to a shadowy world of savage and at times exhilarating violence where the deepest, most base expressions of pleasure and pain blurred the lines of punishment and reward. There her would be master sought to break Storm through unspeakable torments and seductions that encompassed both the obscene and the sublime. No, Emma couldn't have been aware that the deepest core of all that made Ororo herself had gone through a blazing inferno of tortures and temptations; only to come out again reforged in arcane ways that made her both stronger and darkly disturbing.

Sage had seen the subtle shifts in Storms innermost nature that the other X-men remained oblivious to, or deliberately ignored. They did not want to see the changes. It would be too alarming if they had to face them and all they implied. Tessa could not afford the comforts of ignorance though. With all factors in her game weighed and measured, she had been reasonably sure Storm would accept this unique opportunity to finally deal with Emma with her new perspective, and without distractions. Though the swiftness of Storm's acceptance _was_ somewhat surprising. Tessa had anticipated that Storm would need more convincing. That she had accepted with such alacrity however only confirmed the cyberpath's suspicions. And while Tessa herself was not sure to what essential degree Ororo was changed, by the time Storm was done with Emma Many things would be made clear.

"I've programmed the room to respond to your commands Storm. Much of the base data is the same as with the Danger Room, and I've included a few settings you may find interesting. Emma is completely at your disposal. However, the inhibitor collar she is wearing," Tessa paused as the blonde woman's hand flew without thinking to her throat. Storms eyes fastened on the jeweled restraining device with a swift, predatory assessment that reminded the cyberpath all too vividly of their time in the Savage Land. There the mutant wind rider had been transformed into an animalistic, feral huntress. She had slowly and painstakingly regained her human mien with Sages help... at least physically. "Will only come off if Emma gives up her safe word."

At Storms sharp look of inquiry, Tessa leaned forward to hand her a small parchment card, a single word written in exquisitely ornate calligraphy graced the surface. Reading it, silver blue catseyes widened, then narrowed in thought.

"Least you think Emma will give up her safe word too easily, be assured that she pays a grievous forfeit if she cannot last through the session, as well, her pride and reputation stand challenged and will bare the brunt of any spurious use. By Hellfire Club rules, save for death or permanent harm, you are permitted all things. Within the confines of your session, only her safe word counts as true refusal." Tessa tilted her head, dark blue eyes darkening to black as she gave Storm the final protocols. "Any other denial, vocal or otherwise, you may take into consideration, and disregard as it pleases you. Unless Emma uses her safe word, the session isn't complete and over until you are completely satisfied, in whichever and whatever way you desire."

For a moment, Storm was still. Her initial impulsive acceptance had been a snap reaction to her building frustration with Sage, and the flare of ardent aggression she instinctively felt for Emma Frost. But now that the dark haired cyberpath had so baldly laid out the limits… or rather, the appalling lack there of...

"When you are ready, simply begin." Tessa's final statement turned Storm's attention to her one time teammate just in time to watch her exit with the quiet, serene grace that had during their time together become so achingly familiar. The sound of the door shutting behind her was soft as a whisper, but a clap of thunder could not have been more momentous.

"Surely you don't plan to go through with Tessa's game." Emma's mocking tone conveyed the unmistakable message that she found situation to be totally ridiculous, but her ice blue eyes followed Storm with the wary care a white Persian cat might have if she found herself trapped with a lioness. While the powerful telepath was not someone to be taken lightly, without her powers she stood little chance against someone of Ororo's formidable abilities. "Really Storm, isn't something like _this_ beneath you?"

"Start Program." Storm coolly ignored Emma's words and waited for the room to take on new parameters. " Setting… 131."

The lights dimmed in response and in the space of a breath, the formally Spartan room was recreated into an unfortunately familiar setting.

"It seems Sage has copied the Danger Rooms program archive." Storm commented as she paced the confines of the remade chamber, "After our first encounter with the Hellfire Club, when the pain of Jeans passing had finally eased, constructing this mock up was painfully therapeutic. Do you remember? How she rescued me from you, that first time."

"How could I forget?" Emma's voice had gone carefully soft as she turned from the intensity in Storms steady stare, and slowly looked over a replica of a laboratory. The walls were lined with desks and instruments that for their time had been cutting edge science equipment, towards the center of the room was a large Y shaped construct, the wrist restraints on the upper arms silently proclaiming its purpose. The original room, in depths of the Frost Enterprises headquarters, had been destroyed many years ago. The chill Storm had brought to the air had remained though everything else had changed. Emma ran her hands over her bare arms trying to forestall a shiver, and tried to convince herself it was only the lack of heat. Without the cape and gloves, her brief costume offered little protection from the cold, and less from stirring memories. "Interrogation is seldom pleasant, but you were so very stubborn at fighting my mind probe. It wouldn't have hurt nearly so much if you had even the faintest concept of submission."

"You enjoyed it." Storm's voice hardened with a long hoarded anger, "You forced your way into my mind and gloried in the feeling of domination it gave you. Even through my own screaming agony, I could feel your pleasure, pulsing like a second heart beat beneath my own."

"So now you expect to get some of your own back, Storm?" Emma's eyes flashed, as she turned to find the distance between herself and Storm had disappeared. They stood less than an arms length from each other, and a world apart. "It was a long time ago. I was much different then."

"Not so different." Storms words struck coldly. "You still take what you want without regard to the pain and suffering you cause. To believe otherwise is a practice of self deception."

Almost, a protest rose to Emma's lips, but staring into her one time captives accusing eyes, she found other words, cruel words that might serve better a shield from Storms cutting verbal attack.

"Yes, I hurt you, because I **_wanted_** to hurt you... and yes, I **_liked_** it. I was each and every inch the villainess you considered me to be, rapacious and callous to the harm I caused in the pursuit of my desires." Her lips curved in a half bitter, half amused smile at the growing fury in Storms eyes. "You see? I have no illusions about myself Storm. I am who I am, and make no apologies for it. Even if I were so inclined, it wouldn't ease the vengeful ache in your breast, would it?"

"So unrepentant", The words hissed low between Storms teeth like a snake, "Perhaps if you knew better the suffering you so easily met on others, it might strip some of that callous disregard from you."

" ** _You_** would seek to lesson **_me_** in suffering?" Emma couldn't help the laughter that bubbled from her. Even though she knew goading Storm further would only worsen an already lamentablely uncertain situation, she just couldn't seem to help herself. There was something about Ororo that brought out Emma's worst impulses. "It was my mother's milk. I know suffering, Wind Rider, and how its better to be its cause than its victim."

Stepping away from the now ominously still Storm, Emma moved to the Y frame and slid her hand over one of the upper arms slowly. The gesture was almost affectionate. "There, is little that someone like you could teach me, Ororo. Though, Ill grant, you **_did_** have a certain talent for it. I don't know if I've ever seen anyone suffer so beautifully."

"You seem remarkably unconcerned," Storms voice had taken on a flat, nearly emotionless tone, "For someone with so much to answer for, now that you are in the hands of someone with the opportunity to make you pay."

"I'll admit, for a moment I was almost concerned." Emma's voice had regained its habitual purr of insolence. "A brief touch of irrational worry. But then my reason reasserted itself as I realized that there is really nothing you can do, short of killing me, and you've already had your chance at that and passed it by. You are too conventionally noble to make good or rather, bad, upon your oh so intimidating postures."

"Put your wrists in the restraints." Storms comments were delivered in the same curiously flat tone as before. "Now."

"You are joking, aren't you dear? You may summoned up this delightful recreation of our **_special_** first encounter with each other, but don't expect me to jump through hoops out of some pedestrian sense of remorse." Emma's tone had grown irritatingly patronizing.

"If I understood Tessa correctly," Storms eyes narrowed as she spoke, "You are mine to do what I please with."

"Oh, I am yours, Storm. Lock, stock..." The blonde woman leaned back against the Y frame in a mockingly provocative pose, "... and barrel. But while you may have me, you haven't **_tamed_** me. Did you think I was just going to obey you like a good little slave? Dream on. This is the Hellfire Club, where the strong command the weak. Obedience is enforced with… force. To be perfectly frank, I don't think you have it in you to **_make_** me obey."

For the first time since entering the Hellfire Clubs smaller knock off of the Danger Room, Storm smiled. It was not a particularly nice smile.

"Lets find out then, shall we?"

 

chapter 5

 

"Emma… You could never resist playing with fire." Sage's comment was softly amused as she watched the scene unfolding between the former White Queen and Storm. "What was it you once told me? ' _Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can truly go.'_ So… you've realized Storm isn't going to let this chance pass by, and will try to brazen it out in your typical damn the consequences style. You will push her, and keep pushing even though you know your boldness will cost you dear. Or is it… _because_ it will cost you so dear?"

In her private observation lounge, Sage studied the myriad data streams fed to her from the vast array of sensors that monitored and recorded _everything_ within the Hellfire Club's _'Pleasure Room'_ and particularly noted the quickening of the blonde woman's heart beats, the increased rate of her blood circulation, the spiking of her adrenalin levels… so many tell tale signs for the cyberpath to absorb and assess, which she did with a certain pleased interest.

Emma had thrown down the gauntlet for a battle of wills, and Storm had not been loathe to take it up. One moment the beautiful, regal black woman in the couture gown stood sleek, elegant and as still as a forest pool of deepest water, the next she was a white water rush of motion. She fell upon the one time White Queen with the savage force of a huntress born. To her credit, Emma fought back like a true wildcat, instead the pampered pet so many would mistake her for, but the outcome was never in doubt. In the space of heartbeats it was over…

She hung from the frame, defeated, but no less defiant; though her wrists were clamped high and tight, and she still fought to regain the breath that Storm had driven from her with a well placed blow. It had taken mere moments, but she'd ache for days. Blinking to bring the world back into focus, Emma ran her tongue over her lips, trying to alleviate the sudden dryness in her mouth and tasted the faint copper hint of blood. Years of training, both with the younger students at Xavier's, and later true combat sessions with the other X-men as Emma had become more of a team member had made her a fair fighter. Or at least she had thought so before being so summarily handed her ass by that white haired weather witch. Perhaps she could hold her own in an ordinary skirmish if she had to, even without her diamond form to give her hard and solid edge, but against Storm… The stories about her gladiator level fighting prowess were true, blast her hide.

"Still so sure I don't have what it takes?" Storm's voice held purring note of satisfaction as one dark, graceful hand casually gripped Emma's pale blonde hair at the nape and pulled back with a possessive tightness. In contrast to Emma's thorough dishevelment, their brief combat hadn't even mussed the lustrous milk white of Ororo's upswept hair. "Perhaps you are now beginning to feel a few pangs of… remorse?"

"Bite me." Emma's impulsive, rude reply made the hand in her hair tighten even more, and she couldn't help a sudden gasp of pain and surprise.

"If that's how you want to play it." Storm's voice dropped to lower, more ominous register.

Before Emma could even think to resist, the hand in her hair yanked her head aside, and a frightened bleat of protest escaped her lips as Storm's mouth came down on her throat. She could feel the hard edges of the other woman's teeth pressing into the delicate skin just over the pulse point that beat frantically. Emma's breath shuddered in her breast as she expected the sensation of tearing pain… and instead felt the soft moist warmth of an exploratory tongue. Where Storm's mouth lingered, the mix of her warm breath with chilled air on the captive telepath's throat was sending a steady stream of odd shocks through out Emma aching body.

"Fear tastes good on you, Emma Frost." Storm's voice had gone smoky with a tone of almost sensuous menace. "Better than I thought it would. I could tear you open right now, and there is absolutely _nothing_ you could do to stop me."

"I don't fear you, Wind Rider." Despite her brave words, Emma couldn't help the tremble in her voice that made them a lie. With the inhibitor collar on, Emma couldn't tell what thoughts were lurking behind Storm's ominous attitude. A soul deep shiver ran through her as the depth of her helplessness truly sank in. She couldn't tell what the weather witch was thinking…

"You should. You shall." Storm brought her head up to pin her captive's wide eyed gaze with her own silver washed intensity, "You made me your slave once. Violated me… used me for your pleasure without the slightest consideration. Now I will repay that **_favor_** as it deserves. I will take what I want from you… _however_ I want to take it from you."

There was an ocean of threat in Storm's words, and no trace of mercy or compassion in her silver white eyes. Sudden lightening made painfully bright flashes as it arc'd through the room blasting through the now out dated machinery and instruments, leaving them smoking debris. The following rumble of thunder filled the room, sounding like the growl of some enormous beast that had swallowed them whole. The dark swirl of thunderclouds that now blanketed the ceiling opened up their hearts and let the waiting rain pour down in drenching sheets.

The display of elemental power left Emma gasping as she tried desperately to wrench her head out of Storm's implacable iron grip. There was nothing to shield her upturned face from the deluge, and her mouth filled with rain, choking her screams. She was drowning… And then as suddenly as it had appeared, the tempest dissolved, leaving the former White Queen sodden and limp in her bonds, coughing through ragged and greedy gulps of air.

Mercifully, the room's climate control had finally met the task of bringing a modicum of warmth to the room, which made being utterly soaked to the skin only uncomfortable, instead of a deadly. White blonde hair plastered down close against her head, Emma opened the eyes she'd had to close against the fury of the downpour and looked up into Storm's waiting scrutiny. Water clung to the weather witch's face in tiny clear beads, and the oh so lovely and sophisticated coif had come undone in the rain, leaving the silken mass of milk white streaming over the warm rich chocolate cream of her bare shoulders. The wet silk of the Ororo's gown clung all but transparent to her body, accentuating instead of hiding the clear evidence of her state of excitement.

Emma recognized the glow of sensual thrill when she saw it. For a brief time she had possessed both the sublimely sensitive body and the elemental powers of Storm, and felt the pure ecstasy that flooded through the one with the use of the other. She'd always wondered how the weather witch continually managed to keep so serene a countenance with so much raw pleasure constantly rushing through her at every use of her power. That chaste, calm façade was absent now, and Emma felt her breath catch at the wanton and cruel delight of Storm's wide smile. As the White Queen, Emma was familiar with hedonistic avarice, but she'd never expected to see such a look on this woman's face.

"Storm… You… You're not really yourself…" Her voice was so damnably weak, and no little hoarse from coughing up the river of rainwater that had all but killed her. "You don't want to do this…"

The hand in Emma's hair released its painful grip and to her alarm began to stroke through the damp, blonde white tresses with a proprietary affection.

"I am more myself now than I have ever been." Storm's voice held the dark glory of thunder only barely contained by it's human shell, "And we've only begun your long over due chastisement Emma Grace Frost."

 

chapter 6

 

_She was raw and elemental power, without restraint, without guilt… and it was exhilarating how free she finally felt_.

Storm knew she was behaving badly. She didn't care. In the past there had been times when she was pushed beyond the limits of her normal restraint and had lost herself in the embrace of her darker passions… for a few glorious, brief moments. Each time she had managed to tame them down again and take back the mantle of sober virtue. But this time she was not turning back. There were no friends and teammates at hand to prick at her conscience and nothing to chide her into taking the nobler path. Here, in the heart of the Hellfire Club there was only she and the one woman who had the temerity to steal away what Storm held most dear. The White Queen, in one of her ploys to capture and subjugate the X-men, had severed a most precious and essential bond between Ororo and the living earth by forcibly switching their minds and bodies. Beyond the theft of flesh, it was that ravishment of her very soul that grieved her most. It was a crime for which there could be no punishment great enough to recompense.

But Storm intended to give it her best shot.

She paused to luxuriate in the moment, slowly perusing the almost mesmerizing display of helpless vulnerability before her. Storm's oft times adversary was caught fast in the very same type of captivity that Ororo had once suffered at those oh so delicate and cruel hands. To see the proud, imperious Emma Frost completely caught fast and at her former captive's mercy was… intensely pleasing. Was _this_ what the White Queen had felt when Storm had been _her_ victim? This strangely seductive excitement that pervaded her entire being? A sensuous shudder ran through her, and Storm wondered at how simply _looking_ at Emma in her helplessness could be so very intoxicating.

The blonde woman had fallen silent, perhaps from the delayed shock of her sudden drenching, or the grasp of her circumstances finally dawning in all its awful fullness. Suspended from the "Y" frame manacles like some pagan sacrifice, the vulnerable length of her lovely body stretched out like a pale and shining offering. Storm continued to stroke her fingers through the damp locks of the telepath's flaxen hair and considered what to do next with her prisoner. She was deceptively fair of face and form, with a rare, unmarred beauty that mocked Storm with its false purity. She was also completely soaked to the skin, of which so very much was exposed in that brief white leather pretense of an outfit. Somehow, the Hellfire Club garb for its female members managed to look more naked than actual nudity. Emma had always managed to use her seductive attire as yet another weapon in her personal arsenal. The White Queen's costume often provided a potent, erotic distraction that the cunning mind witch used to her fullest advantage in confrontations. It was her armor of sorts, a subtle and illicit edge. It would have to go.

The ornamental spikes that had held together Ororo's upswept hairstyle had come loose in the torrential down pour which had left everything in the room sodden and water pooling on the ground to slowly drain away through a grate that had been overlooked until the gurgle of the escaping liquid announced its presence. It too was part of the replica that mimic'd the original laboratory long since destroyed at Frost Enterprises. Storm thought darkly about what it's original's purpose was for, where things less innocent than rain were in need of washing away. Retrieving the wetly shining metal rods, Storm twist and slid one open to reveal the simple but oh so effective blade within. So slender, so very, very sharp.

Watching Storm approach with the naked blade, Emma forcible slowed her ragged breathing and fought an inner battle to remain still instead of frantically twisting in her bonds. She better than any knew how futile it would be for someone with normal human strength to try and break free from these particular restraints. They had been carefully designed to her own specifications to hold fast even someone of Olympic athlete strength no matter how manic or frenzied their struggle. A purpose for which they'd been field tested, time and time again. As she was, Emma knew she had no hope of getting loose save at Storm's sufferance. Gathering the shreds of her dignity, she waited as stoically as she could manage.

The blade was smooth and cold as Storm laid it with a chilling gentleness against the softness of Emma's unblemished cheek. She let it rest there a long and weighted moment, and watched the ice blue of her captive's eyes slowly begin to shimmer with unshed tears. This too was strangely pleasurable, though Storm could not quite put into words why it should be so. "You _are_ afraid." There was the hint of a growl in Ororo's low voice as she finally allowed the blade to move carefully against the skin in a slight, threatening caress, "There is no point in denying it. We both know that the least amount of pressure and this alluring façade falls to ruin. You _could_ use your safe word, and turn to diamond form. Why do you remain flesh?"

Emma wanted to close her eyes against the weather witch's deeply penetrating stare, but found she could not. It was a galling thing to have to admit, but for once she could not give Storm anything less than the truth. "Because… I trust you."

It was a startling answer. Storm wasn't sure she liked its implications. How dare the mind witch presume so much? Anger pulsed hotly in her veins that such a villain as the White Queen would take her safety in Storm's hands for granted… And yet… with that angry heat there was also a confusing sense of… pleased satisfaction?

"You don't think I would cut you?" The question was coldly ominous, and Storm let the blade tip press the most minute amount, so that a single drop of blood welled ruby bright against fair skin.

"You might." Emma's voice was whisper thin, and the genuine lace of fear within it soothed part of the anger that washed through Storm, even as the following words piqued her interest. "But I don't think you will do me… true lasting harm."

"And why do you think that?" Storm's voice grew no warmer, but the light in her cat's pupil eyes brightened with curiosity.

"Because you are a better person than I am."

It was such a simple statement. Yet it conveyed a wealth of complexities.

"Am I?" Storm lowered the blade as she leaned forward and licked away the trembling scarlet bead with the tip of her tongue. "I'm not so sure any more."

The slender knife cut through the first, top lace that held Emma's corset closed.

 

chapter 7

 

As the thin strip of material parted easily to the razor edged blade, Emma could not help a sharp inhalation of breath, or the slightest of tremors that betrayed her heightened sense of distress. Her eyes fluttered shut as she tried to calm the fiercely fast beat of her heart. The sound of her own blood pounding was a rising roar in her ears and she was sure it was so loud that the weather witch had to hear it as well.

"Open your eyes, Emma. I want you to watch." The curt command was low, but brooked no refusal.

Emma's eyes blinked open and met the intense silver blue gaze that held her own as with unhurried deliberation the knife went on to sever another crisscross of leather cord, then another… Each separating strand allowing the corset to slowly peel open like a dying flower, whose rain wet, white petals would completely fall away at the end of it's final, fatal bloom. As the constrictive confines of the leather loosened, she felt her breasts press free, the soft fullness of their round weight swayed unbound.

Only halfway through the corset ties, the weather witch paused to take notice of how each perfect, exposed breast was graced with a wide, pale coral aureole, a blushing frame for the sweetly prominent bud at the center. Chill? Fear? The tender, rosy tips thrust forward thick and surprisingly firm. Curious, Storm drew the edge of the blade softly over the snowy curve of one breast, and delicately ran the sharp point against a jutting nipple. The response was instant and obvious as the taut, fleshy button flushed a darker pink and seemed to both swell and tighten visibly.

Emma's rising color grew more intense as she felt a warm, rich wave of shame at her body's traitorous reaction. She wanted to shut her eyes again, cursing her tell tale fair complexion as a rare sense of humiliation suffused her.

"This… _excites_ you." Storm's comment wasn't a question, but a pensive statement of the obvious.

"That is ludicrous. As if anything _you_ could do… " Emma's voice faltered, then, lip curled with shaky disdain, she dissembled as artfully as she could manage. "It's only embarrassment at this ridiculous show of revenge, and the lovely damp chill you've put in the air. So there is a _minor_ physical reflex, what does it matter?"

The blade pressed once more to prick the tender, out thrust nub and the bound woman's involuntary gasp and widening eyes answered her own question more thoroughly than mere words. Blood welled once more, red against soft rose, but only a most tiny bead from the shallow pierce.

When Ororo lowered her head towards it, Emma braced herself for another light and brief brush of a tongue to capture the tiny trace of crimson, only to cry out in surprise as instead the weather witch's strong, white teeth captured the nipple in unexpected tightness. Without thinking, Emma's hips thrust back as her back curved in an arch that pressed her breasts forward. She felt Storm's teeth scrape roughly on the tenderness of her flesh, and close down possessively. Though she tried not to react to the sensation of the claiming bite, her body wasn't listening to the cool voice of reason. The pulsing of heat in her veins rose to drown it out. When she was finally released, Emma was panting and flushed with a confusion of shock and need that she desperately tried to hide from her tormentor.

Storm gave her an unsettling and unreadable stare, and without further words, continued with cutting the rest of the corset away from the White Queen's now hotly blushing skin. Emma's breasts felt feverish with the need to be touched, soothed… and the singled out nipple throbbed with an unusual ache that was both pain and pleasure. Emma tried to shift her position, seeking some relief from the tension building in her body, but her ability to move was limited by the restraints that held her fast.

"Something wrong, Emma?" The false solicitude brought a glare from the discomforted blonde, just as the final cut released the corset to fall away completely to leave her naked from the waist up. "Does it really take so little to bring the famed White Queen low?"

"Do your worst, Storm." The telepath had regained some measure of her bravado, using it to mask the whirlwind of mixed emotions she held within. "Your skill at torment is nothing compared to lessons meted out by the Hellfire Club. Were our roles reversed, I'd soon teach you the difference."

"Has anyone ever told you, Emma?" the other woman smoothed back the damp, silky tangle of her silver white locks, and studied the flushed captive with troubled, narrowed eyes, "That you are your own worst enemy? I'm beginning to think you _want_ this." Storm's low, melodic voice held an acerbic edge "Is that why you are _really_ here?"

"Don't be absurd." Ice blue eyes flashing, the blonde woman words came out clipped, as if she were mortally affronted. "I'm only enduring this… I'm only here because Tessa is far too clever for her own good. You'll never have a chance like this again, Wind Rider, of that you may be sure. I most certainly don't want…"

Storm cut through the high thin straps of the costume's bottom half.

"… this!"

The sudden exposure had Emma stunned silent for a moment as she now stood only in a pair of high white boots, and nothing else. The mound of her sex was covered in a short, well trimmed fuzz of light gold. The fine dusting of hair made a pretty accent, while hiding nothing, including the moist pinkness of her more intimate flesh, just visible between the slightly parted outer lips.

The blonde telepath glared wordlessly at the woman holding the blade, but aside from a slight stiffening of her spine tried not to acknowledge her nearly complete nakedness. There was precious little she could do to shield herself, and she didn't want to give Storm the satisfaction of knowing that it mattered how her most private charms was now on blatant display. For all that Emma would dress provocatively, it was very few indeed who were favored with the truly intimate mysteries of her body. That Storm had simply _taken_ that privilege left her feeling most… agitated.

"Without the trappings of the White Queen, you are just another piece of convenient, wanton flesh." The softness in the weather witch's voice held a calculated scorn as the tip of the blade moved downward to play a delicate pattern against the paleness of a vulnerable inner thigh. "Available to any defilement."

The slow pace of each drawn out second played havoc with the telepath's nerves so that when the cut finally came it rocked through her senses like a lightening strike. When Ororo in a fluid move, sank down to her knees and pressed the heat of her mouth to the tingling nick, Emma bit her lip to prevent the small whimper at the back of her throat from escaping. This time the weather witch lingered, biting at the wounded spot slowly and listening as the telepath's breath shuddered and grew harsh. She bit… until Emma cried out in true, pained protest.

Storm held the flesh in her teeth for the space of a dozen heartbeats before releasing. She had not broken skin, but the imprint of her bite would remain for some small while. The sight of her mark, startling angry red on such tender fair flesh was curiously fascinating. And for no other reason but that it pleased her to do so, she stayed to gently trace the impression with her lips and exploring tongue.

This unexpected soothing after the pain nearly put Emma to tears. It hurt… it really did… and yet something about the pain felt… Despite her will to be unmoved, Emma felt herself react to the now sweet torment of tenderness mixing with the darting sting from the bite. Low and deep she felt herself tighten and grow… slick. Alarmed, she tried to draw her legs together. Emma couldn't bare the thought of Storm noticing the particular effect she was having. It was a doomed effort, for the weather witch was inconveniently positioned between the Emma's parted thighs, and so close to her traitorously moistening sex, the weather witch could not help but scent the subtle musk that perfumed the air. The soft play of Storm's mouth paused…

Ororo stilled as she breathed in the unmistakable richness of arousal. She had meant to punish, not seduce the woman who hung captive and shivering with what Storm could no longer ignore was sexual want. Emma Frost's reaction was unlooked for, and deeply disturbing, but no more so than her own answering rise of excitement. It felt good to bleed this sleek smooth flesh, to watch the tender crimson pearls form, then claim them as her right. And it felt good to bite the pale porcelain skin and mark it with her teeth, till Emma's made such sweetly, distressed noise. And it felt indescribably delicious to know with absolute certainty that her delicate torment had brought the once proud and powerful White Queen to true, helpless, heated need. Ororo could smell the aroused perfume of Emma's oh so close sex so strongly that it almost pulsed warm and rich on her tongue.

Storm laid her cheek against the trembling of Emma's soft inner thigh, and closed her eyes, simply breathing. Sight… sound… scent… taste… touch… She had no sense that was not being utterly seduced. Sage, how could she have _not_ foreseen how her "gift" would become this tempting, erotic trap? Damn the cyberpath for playing with her like this!

Wrenching away, Storm stood up glaring at the bound, blonde telepath. How much had Emma been in collusion with Tessa's game?

"End Program 131" Storm's curt command rang out through the room like the knell of doom.

All traces of the long ago destroyed laboratory faded to naught in the space of a breath. The Y frame too disappeared, leaving a startled, confused, and still naked Emma to catch her self in a stumbling fall to the ground.

"Start Program, Setting, The Savage Land."

And everything was suddenly hot and jungle humid, and wildly green.

"I'll give you to the count of ten." Storm's cold words broke through Emma's bafflement, "Then I start hunting you."

"I don't understand…" Emma stood, feeling unsteady both from her sudden release, the change of venue, and the remaining aftermath of Storm's not so tender mercies.

Ignoring the hesitant blonde telepath for the moment, Storm gathered her skirt and slashed away the fabric to a ragged knee length.

"You don't want me to catch you, Emma. You really don't." Storm's voice held a fierceness that made the other woman step back before she realized she had given way. "Start running while you have the chance."

"And If I don't?" Emma refused to simply rabbit, even though the electricity in the air had become charged once more, raising Storm's hair to wave like milk white flame that matched the pure burning pearl of her eyes.

"Then I'll savage you. Here. Now." Storm's voice was also laced with electricity, and terrible promise. "So run. Run now Emma Grace Frost. Run for your life."

 

chapter 8

 

She ran. Breath a clawed thing in her chest, crashing through the foliage with only one thought foremost in her mind, _RUN! Run fast run very very fast_ The edges of leaves cut at her, small branches and vines whipped and abraded her unprotected skin, but Emma focused on achieving as much distance as possible before Storm began her pursuit. The look in the X-man's eyes had been frightening, and Emma was no longer sure if her boast of lasting a session with Storm without using her safe word was as important as it had been in the beginning.

The pulsing, aching heat of the few small wounds Storm had given her had been so unexpected. Not the measure of harms done, but the way they had been delivered, with something more than mere retribution. The telepath had expected at best a verbal brow beating, at worst an actual physical chastisement that while humiliating would be no more than the suffering of a few strikes and blows, while the X-men team leader's sense of fair play would keep her from doing true harm. From anyone but Storm, she might have prepared herself for less clean-cut forms of vengeance. And if it had been anyone but Storm that Tessa proposed Emma give herself to, she most likely would have declined.

This was madness. Emma had no woodcraft, much less any knowledge skills at dealing with a primordial jungle. Hiding would be a joke, so all she could hope for would be that the Ororo's pursuit would be impeded by the dense, lush jungle growth long enough for whatever fierce passion that burned in her now ebbed to more… manageable levels.

And abruptly the jungle ended, bringing Emma to a skidding stop as the great river before her broke over her senses with the sound of rushing water and moist scent of fecund life. It was magnificent in its primal, elemental glory, as was the creature drinking from its edge. Tawny fur and muscle, golden feline eyes, and teeth like great and gleaming ivory daggers marked the sabertooth female for what she was, a supreme huntress, beautiful and terrible to behold.

Frozen in momentary surprise, Emma only stared at the beast as it lunged forward in a fluid movement that she'd only witnessed in one other being. As if summoned by her thoughts, a bolt of lightening seared the ground between the great cat and the telepath, and Storm stepped from the jungle's edge, electric energy shifting in her hands like a playful, living cats cradle.

" _ **Mine."**_

The sabertooth female chuffed, taking in the newcomer in a glance. Though she seemed a frail opponent, it could recognize the predator spirit in the two legged, rival huntress. Another bolt of lightening that struck close enough to rain rubble onto golden furred paws, and the great cat decided the creamy pale morsel, while delicious looking, was already claimed. Shaking out her tawny frame, the sabertooth lioness disappeared into another part of the jungle, leaving the two smooth skins alone.

"You disappoint me Emma, you didn't get very far at all." Storm's voice was cool condescension as she slowly stalked towards the telepath, the sizzling strands of energy still weaving alarmingly between her hands. "I had hoped for better from you."

"You may consider yourself a great hunter, but you've forgotten something important, Storm." Emma's voice was somewhat winded from her run, but held a desperate determination that halted the white haired mutant for a moment.

"And that would be?" Storm's head tilted as she took in Emma's disheveled hair and the new cuts and abrasions on her unprotected flesh. The former White Queen was visibly worse for wear, but she still radiated an in inner strength of spirit that made her rather magnificent in her naked defiance.

"A hunt isn't over until you've brought down your prey."

She was moving before the last word was even out her mouth, sprinting for the river. Without the great cat to bar her way, Emma was far closer to the dubious safety of it's waters than Storm was to her. Ignoring the shout from the X-men leader, Emma caught her breath and dove, cutting cleanly into the water and below the surface to swim as strongly as she could. What the weather witch couldn't see, she couldn't catch. Unfortunately, Emma had forgotten that the Savage Land's waters contained dangers to match any that trod the land.

When something scaled and serpentine brushed against her, Emma's heart almost burst through her chest from the pounding. She couldn't see exactly what was in the murky water with her; only sense the immense size of it as it coiled around her, dragging her down. Frantically she tried to wiggle loose. If she could only make it to the surface… The telepath tried not to lose what little breath she had left in a useless spray of bubbles. No safe word could save her if she wasn't able to give it voice…

She fought. Clawing at steel muscled scaled flesh that only continued to constrict. The silt heavy water was in her nose and mouth… clouding her eyes… her lungs were on fire… a last desperate frenzy of effort… Useless… On the last edge of consciousness, the water suddenly exploded into a frenzy of thrashing motion that flung the now limp telepath free. As her mind faded to shadow, Emma could see the shimmer of light that was the sun on the water's surface… too far away… too late...?

Something curled around her waist… Her last wisp of consciousness fading Emma saw the pale flash of a silver white mane and knew…

…

…Emma was sure she was retching up the entire river, and it tasted _foul_. She hurt inside and out, but between wheezing coughs that purged the water from her throat and lungs and finally faded into shuddering breaths she managed to call Storm several choice names and suggest at least two physically impossible things the X-man could do to herself and with the creature the weather witch had rescued her from.

"Are you finished?" Storm's voice held an amused note that infuriated Emma, but as the telepath's ice blue glare met the laughing silver blue of Ororo's eyes, she nodded. On her hands and knees on the river bank, naked but for waterlogged white leather boots, bruised, scratched, and half drowned, Emma knew she was in the unhappy position of owing the weather witch her life.

"You saved me." The acknowledgement was less than gracious, but Emma made the effort without the grimace she managed to reign in.

"Not the first time." Storm's voice was indulgent, but there was an edge behind her words set Emma's warning bells off. The dark skinned woman had worked off some of her rage in killing the river serpent, but it was far from spent.

"Don't expect me to fall over in gratitude." Emma's felt weak as a kitten, but she could still manage a credible snarl… Which would have been far more effective if her shaking limbs hadn't chosen that moment to fail her. The blonde telepath collapsed in a sprawl on her side, and started to shiver uncontrollably.

"Emma?" Storm's sharp exclamation of surprise held a note of genuine concern as she realized that delayed shock had finally caught up with the White Queen. Without stopping to think it through, the X-man simply reacted, going to the shaking telepath and drawing her into an embrace. "End Program the Savage Land. Begin Program, Kahn's Grotto."

The river, the jungle, the Savage Land faded away in the space of a heart beat, instantly replaced by lush, exotic luxury. This was the heart of the private harem where Storm was once held prisoner by the conqueror known as Kahn. In the beautiful and indomitable X-man, Kahn had met his match, and claimed her as his queen. Storm however had shown the would be ruler of her world that what was captured, was not always so easily kept. Now, here in a perfect recreation of her most exquisite and perfumed cage, Ororo held a violently trembling Emma Frost close, and let a warm gust of air carry them into the warm waters of a heated bathing pool. In the original, Storm had recovered from a savage backstabbing by the murderous "prince" of Madripoor, the criminal known as Viper. In this flawless recreation, the steaming waters soothed away the bone deep chill of shock that had settled into Emma's traumatized system.

When the tremors wracking the telepath finally quieted away, Storm quietly released Emma and stripped out of the rags that was all that remained of the once lovely gown the X-man had begun her evening in. Leaving the torn cloth in a wet heap beside the bathing pool, Storm returned the silent, but wary blonde woman who still soaked in the heated waters.

"The boots have to go."

Storm's comment caused Emma to take a step back. It was ridiculous that removing the boots would matter to her. She was already naked in every way that counted, and the white leather now thrice soaked were ruined. But when the white haired weather witch reached for the release tab at her inner thigh, Emma couldn't help but skittishly shuffle away. Silver blue cat's pupil eyes narrowing, Storm stalked forward as the telepath awkwardly retreated, her backward steps hampered by deep bath water, and fact that the very boots she was strangely reluctant to have Storm remove did not give Emma any traction on the smooth surface of the bathing pool's floor.

Emma's ice blue eyes were wide and staring as she felt the edge of the pool press firm against her back. There wasn't any farther she could retreat. Storm drew closer until only the thinnest space was between her dusky nakedness and Emma's on pale nudity.

"Why are you running away, Emma?" Storm's voice was a low, purring sound that sent a new shiver through the telepath.

"I don't want you to catch me." Emma's voice was a shaky whisper, as Storm moved forward that final sliver of space, pressing her warm dark flesh firmly against Emma's own.

"Liar."

Emma opened her mouth to protest, and Storm claimed it with a kiss… 

 

chapter 9

 

Sensual strength, warm, moist and seductive captured the softness of Emma's mouth and demanded nothing less than her complete surrender. She could feel herself being lost in the absolute mastery of the kiss, feel herself yielding what she had never completely yielded before, and the smallest sounds of panic'd alarm escaped the former White Queen; tiny desperate whimpers that only served to excite Storm's already heated blood. Ruthlessly the darker woman deepened the kiss, her fingers curling in the damp, champagne blonde paleness of the telepath's hair with a deliberate cruelty. Emma's weak, instinctive struggle was like spiced wine, intoxicating… her mouth was like heated honey. Ororo's kiss grew more intimately possessive as she felt the other woman tremble against her, the full length of their bodies pressed so close together she could feel the frantic racing of Emma's heartbeat.

Something hungry and dark stirred in Storm's soul, a waking panther shadow that purred at the tender vulnerability of the prey in its grasp… It was only with an iron exercise of will power that she managed to pull herself away, to step back and leave Emma, her breathing ragged and pale blue eyes wide and staring, to cling to the edge of the bath for support.

"The boots, Emma. Take them off, or I will take them off for you." There words came out harshly, almost in a growl, and the silver blue of Ororo's eyes was fever bright.

Part of her wanted the telepath to refuse, to make it necessary to fight her, forcefully subdue her, take her… Heat blossomed through Storm and her lips parted to let softly panting breath escape. Some small, distant part of her was shocked at the feral turn of her thoughts, the animalistic urgency that ran through the core of her being. But it was a very small part indeed, and easily drowned out by the new excitement that was flooding her. For so long Storm had kept her deeper, darker passions caged. Her time in the underground mutant arenas had cracked that cage, and let loose the fierce thing that lived in her heart of hearts. Thankfully, for the peace of mind of her fellow X-men if nothing else, those less acceptable passions mostly slept unless given dire provocation. Unfortunately for the one time White Queen, her mere existence was now proving to be all the provocation needed.

Unsteady hands fumbled in the bath water, finding and releasing the catches so the ruined white leather boots could be peeled open. Emma got them each half way undone, but faltered when she realized to strip them completely off, she'd have to risk sinking beneath the surface of the warm bath water. It was too soon… the memory of drowning too fresh and terrible in her mind.

"I…" Her voice trailed off uneasily, sure that her hesitation would be taken as defiance, when for once it was not. She felt strangely weak, and for the first time in a very long while, self conscious to the point of being…

She'd wavered in her indecision too long, and Ororo had closed the distance between them once more, her dark hands startling against the white leather even through the shifting, steam kissed bath waters. Storm's slender, strong hands were surprisingly gentle as the weather witch worked each boot off while Emma braced herself against the upper edge of the bathing pool to keep her balance. As the last boot came off with a firm tug, at last leaving the blonde completely stripped of her Hellfire regalia. Emma shivered despite the warmth of water. Never had she felt so completely bare. It was more than the being naked, which she'd long ago learned to ruthlessly disregard. Somehow she felt exposed in more than just her skin. A thread of fear pulled sharp and bright through her entire being as she finally recognized the trembling feeling that suffused her as something like… shy excitement. Dammit… she turned away and tried to summon up the familiar shielding emotion of simmering antagonism that had served her so well for so long… she wasn't some dewy teenager awaiting her first ravishment…

She started suddenly, as the warm silky strength of Storm's arms slid around her from behind, and the telepath's traitor body tingled with pleasure to be held in so sweet and inescapable an embrace. Emma looked up, over her shoulder and into the other woman's face with a wary watchfulness. The silver blue eyes watched back, exotic cat like eyes that staring at her with beautiful, terrifying predator intensity.

"You didn't give me a good hunt." The husky foreign lilt of Africa in her voice was as lovely and lulling as the words were alarming, "I was wanting to bring you down in the jungle. I wanted to run you down and drag you screaming and struggling to the ground, then do things to you that would make you weep and cry out in earnest. How should I punish you for disappointing me so?"

Twin starbursts of fear and heat flooded through Emma as Storm dragged the smooth, manicured edges of her nails slowly down the damp, tender valley between the telepath's full breasts in an unsettling caress. The bathing pool water reached just high enough to lap at the dark fingertips that stoked the sweet under swell before they idly captured a pink, turgid tip and pinched just to the point of bearable pain. Emma jerked in surprise, but then tried to hold still as beneath the surface of the bath water, Storm's other hand played over the curve of her hip and slid lazily along the sensitive border where Emma's toned yet still tender tummy ended and the slight sloping curve of her sex began. 

"Not only that, but you nearly let that great cat nearly have you before I could… have you." Storm's voice grew sharply forbidding, even while her touch became more intimately familiar as the exploring fingertips brushed lightly lower, teasing the short golden fringe that wafted in the gentle current of the bathing pool's heated water. "When I saw it about to tear into you, do you know what I was thinking?"

"That's so subtly cruel, Storm." Emma's voice was too soft and breathless for her own liking.

Storm had released the nipple she'd been tormenting but the sharp throbbing ache lingered as the weather witch gently rubbed at it's yet unharmed rosy twin, bringing it to stiff prominence before slowly pinching until Emma's inhaled breath sounded like a sob. The blonde telepath tried to distract herself from the erotic punishment with words. "You know with the inhibitor collar on, I can't read your thoughts."

"You are only one word away from your powers Emma. If you really want any of this to stop, you only have to say it." Storm's mouth moved just below her captive's ear, her breath teasing the sensitive spot as she spoke. Her lower hand slid the slender length of her fingers between the pouting lips of Emma's sex,

"Stop…" Emma's voice quivered on the word as dark tapered fingertips dared to explore the silky texture of her most private flesh. Even with the wash of the warm bath water that ought to have concealed the natural moistness of arousal, her body gave away it's secret to weather witch's delving touch.

"That's not the word." Storm voice was a harsh and low as she pressed into Emma's tightness, invading her slowly first with one finger, stroking with the tip to find that special spot. A sudden squirm and wordless cry from the blonde telepath heralded sweet success.

Between the joined sensations of pain and pleasure, Emma felt a sob well in her throat from building intensity of feeling that was flowing through her. She bit her lip and tried to latch onto something, anything to distract her from the impulse to buck and grind against Storm's hand while the white maned vixen teased her flesh with delicate sadism.

"What were you thinking?" Emma asked, trying to ignore the broken breathlessness of her own words, "When you saw the sabertooth?"

"I was thinking how much better it would be to pit myself against the beast without my powers, to fight it and best it in the most primal and raw way of physical combat. My blood burned in me to simply throw myself at it and prove how I was the strongest predator." Storm's voice was a low growl as she spoke, her words almost obscured as she rubbed the edges of her teeth against the clean line of Emma's smooth, unblemished shoulder and the beating pulse point at her throat.

"Why didn't you?" Emma's voice was ragged she futilely tried to squirm away from the touches that were now nearly too awful and sweet to bear. She was going to be screaming soon, she knew it with an almost despairing certainty. Storm was going to make her scream, make her beg, strip her of the last vestiges of pride and worst of all, try to make her give the one thing she did not dare give to any X-man, much less this X-man.

"Because it was just a construct. It wasn't real. The only things here in this pretty set of gift wrapped illusions that are real, Emma, are you and I." Storm took a moment to kiss the side of Emma's throat softly as she gave her explanation. "So I will show you which of the two of us is the strongest predator. If I cannot have your life, Emma Frost, I will have your complete and utter submission." Storm's caressing mouth found just the spot she wanted. Strong white teeth bit into Emma as the hand between her thighs began to work her with forceful earnest.

"No… Please no…" Emma finally pleaded as she thrashed in the other's merciless grip, the shining paleness of her flesh writhing against the creamy coffee darkness of her past adversary and one time victim. With each sobbing entreaty, Storm only bit harder, until she tasted the copper tang of Emma's blood just below the bruising, yet unbroken skin. Then with a wordless cry of her own, Storm thrust the shuddering blonde hard against the wall of the bathing pool. Emma's hands grasped the edge as if for dear life and a sharp, high wail keened from her throat as Storm's fingers took her with a ruthless, building violence that was both frightening and darkly glorious.

"Yes. Because if it pleases me," Storm's words were a growling beat that was delivered with a devil's shining smile, catching at the edge of Emma's consciousness, "I will devastate you utterly, with the rough, sudden, and undeniable force of a hurricane."

Emma wept now, as the sensation of the being so utterly taken by the other woman stole away her ability to comprehend anything but the feelings of aching pain which fed into fierce pleasure rising hard and relentlessly through her shaking, helpless flesh. She heard, but could no longer answer, could no longer give her focus to anything but roar of her blood and as the building pressures in her mind, body and soul peaked…

She came screaming, the name of a white maned goddess on her lips as once more all was lost in the sound of thunder and the rush of wind which tore away the sobbing moans of rapture and sweet despair riven from her labored breaths. The air was sharp with the tang of ozone and for a moment, Emma was sure she was dying, and yet she never felt more alive… and then darkness washed over her as she collapsed, limp and senseless into Storm's waiting arms.

"Enjoy your stolen moment of mercy." Ororo murmured softly into the disheveled dampness of Emma's hair, her whitely gleaming locks falling forward to mix with the pale gold. "Because soon, I will truly claim you. Slowly, surely and so thoroughly you will never be able to deny that all that you are is mine."

 

chapter 10

 

Emma's slow return to awareness found her comfortably laid out on silken sheets. The room was still set to the grotto, but she was no longer in the warm waters of the bathing pool. It was a bed of some sort, luxuriously spread out amid a fantastic and slightly alien garden full of multitudes of golden flowers. There were roses, and other less identifiable blooms, and the lit tapers of uncountable candles to light the artificial dusk. Overhead was an awesome spacescape, images of an empire far greater than a single world, a single dimension, could ever encompass. In all it was a wondrous tableau to wake to, even when bound in shackles.

Their design was simple, light, and deceptively ornamental, but Emma knew the snug cuffs on her wrists and ankles were there for no innocent purpose. The pleasant, light stroking between her parted thighs as Storm explored the telepath's otherwise bared and vulnerable body brought a soft moan from Emma's lips. She felt an ache deep in her sex, heated and pulsing in time with her heartbeat. There was a little residual soreness from Storm's rough handling, but it fed into the warm ache making her fight back another moan as Storm gave a final caress and withdrew her wandering hand.

"Checking for damage?" Emma's voice was low and slightly hoarse. There was a grieved look of accusation in her pale blue eyes as she stared up at her captor. "Or just toying with your catch before you…" she faltered as Storm brushed a moistened fingertip against Emma's parted lips. Her own most personal scent on the weather witch's skin sent a fine tremble through the telepath.

"You talk too much. I think there are better uses for your mouth, Emma." Storm's comment slid through the telepath like a lover's caress, but there was danger in the weather witch's eyes.

"Storm… don't…" The words left Emma's lips as her sense of self-preservation struggled with the disturbing mix of pleasure and fear, which brought her entire body to a state of heightened awareness. The place she'd been bitten pulsed with a pain that threatened to remain with her for days, but it was overshadowed by the frightening frisson of anticipation that she would have denied if she'd been able.

"Don't what?" The amusement in Storm's voice was low and dark and entirely too knowing, "Don't touch you?" She bent forward slightly so that the milk white silk of her hair trailed teasingly across the telepath's fair, sensitive skin, causing the blonde woman to visibly shiver "Don't taste you?" Her mouth slowly descended until it hovered but a breath away from Emma's parted lips. Delicately Storm's tongue dipped out to trace the soft rose outer edge of a trembling bottom lip. Just as slowly Ororo pulled back and watched pale blue eyes stare up into her own, wide with a whirling confusion of emotions. Emma, for all the stark arrogance that she trusted to mask her true feelings in ordinary circumstances, was woefully ill equipped to hide them when the semblance of control was wrested from her. "Don't torment you?"

Emma jerked with a cry as an unexpected jolt of sensation ran through her body. Ambient energy coalesced around dark and graceful hands as they stroked lightly across pale, shaking flesh. Static electricity danced over bared skin, a thousand tiny tingling prickles that raised the most fine and invisible hairs.

Panting in the aftermath, amid the shivers of agitation and disturbing excitement, a sense of pure disbelief flowed through Emma, soon followed by a resurgence of her own inflamed pride. Ice blue eyes flashing, her hand blurred as she caught Storm across the cheek with an open handed slap that sounded like a thundercrack, rocking the weather witch's head back for a moment. Sitting up Emma glared at the woman she'd struck so violently. No, no matter what she felt, she was still Emma Frost, the White Queen, and she gave no man or woman her true submission.

"You bitch!" If you think I'm just going to lie here and let you do whatever you want with me…!" her angry outburst was silenced by a sudden, bruising kiss as Ororo caught the telepath's wrists in a tight, painful grip. Struggling furiously, the outraged blonde felt her arms forced behind her, her cuffed wrists meeting and suddenly locking together as the bonds proved they were more than decorative. Emma screamed, but the shriek of her frustration was captured by Storm's possessive mouth. Their mouths meshed, the telepath felt the plundering warmth of the kiss claim her with an utter ruthlessness that made her fight all the harder.

Tongues dueled, one for dominance, one to simply resist submission. Emma squealed in sudden protest as she felt her thighs being forced apart and an exploring hand test the humid depths of her sex. To her intense mortification, Emma's sex tightened greedily on the graceful, dark fingers that pressed deeply into very aroused flesh. She moaned in defeat she felt the combined assault of both kiss and intimate invasion overwhelm her resistance. Her mouth softened, returning the kiss with an almost desperate intensity as her body shivered with building erotic tension.

Storm pulled away without warning, leaving the blonde telepath dazed and unsteady to the point of falling over if the weather witch would have allowed it. Instead, Emma found herself held upright, a strong, café au lait arm curled around her shoulders in what might be taken for a show of comfort and friendship, if not for purely carnal need that seemed to suffuse the very air.

"I can… if I want to, do anything to you. Because this is the Hellfire Club, isn't that right, Emma? Where the strong command the weak. Obedience is enforced with… force." Storm's voice had gone soft and sensuously cruel as she threw the one time White Queen's words back in her face. The silver blue catseyes were slitted with malicious pleasure as she licked a fingertip, then touched the wetted tip against the stiff pink tip of one of Emma's now desperately heaving breasts. The small shock that followed felt like an intense snap to Emma's sensitive nerves, and she shouted an obscenity that made an arched, alabaster brow lift in startled marvel at its extreme crudity. "Again, just not the word that could so easily put an end to this. Is what you'd forfeit to Tessa really worth playing this out? You should know by now trusting me not to do you true harm is a fool's game. You aren't strong enough to see this out, Emma. Just admit it. One word and you can just walk away."

It took a moment for the X-man's offered out to sink into Emma's comprehension. She could leave. Emma only had to prove Tessa right, give Storm a clear and unmistakable victory, and walk away in utter, humiliated defeat. One special word and the powers stripped away from her would return, and she could go home and try to pretend she'd never felt Storm's strength as the white haired weather witch pressed her mouth onto Emma's flesh in patterns of pain and pleasure, or felt the sizzle of electricity in her dangerous caress. The peril of losing herself in true submission to Ororo would be a challenge unmet, and therefore safely avoided… All it would cost was any shred of self respect she had left.

No… it wasn't that bad, not yet. Nothing Storm had done so far would leave permanent damage. She was full of unexpected surprises, to be sure, but if the X-man was so quick to offer someone completely at her mercy an easy out, then she clearly didn't have what it would take to bring the Hellfire Club's White Queen to heel. Emma felt steadier now, her shaken confidence returning with a measure of her naturally provocative mein.

"Do you want me to go?" Emma shook out her hair so that the pale champaign gold mass fell back from her face as she tilted her head to study the woman holding her. "If you refuse Tessa's gift, there is nothing I can do to stop you. But you like that, don't you? My not being able to stop you? Maybe, you like it too much. Is that what is disturbing your peace of mind? It's not my trusting you that's in question, Storm. It's whether you trust yourself."

"Are you saying you still trust me?" Storm's gaze sharpened with feral intensity, "Be very careful with your answer Emma, very careful indeed."

"I trust you." Emma's voice was soft but clear as she spoke the words, her ice blue regard fixed on the silver blue of Storm's piercing eyes. "But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop fighting you."

"Good." Storm's smile was dangerously bright as it was beautiful, "I just want things to be absolutely clear. And the answer is yes."

"Yes?" Emma shivered as she felt the other woman's free hand, the one that had given her such a rude little shock on her still tingling and sensitive nipple, reach out to gently caress the tender rosy tip.

"I do like you not being able to stop me." Ororo's answer ended with another merciless kiss as her fingers began to pinch the tight pink bud.

Emma squirmed in the curl of Storm's possessive embrace, the muffled sounds of her protest in counterpoint to the weather witch's predatory growl of pleasure.

 

chapter 11

 

For a moment, it had felt like she had regained a semblance of control. The X-men team leader's probing questions of trust had seemed like familiar ground, revealing that Storm's innate nobility would not allow her to take things farther without first offering a wide-open doorway to escape, though it would have cost Emma dear in dignity to have taken that exit. But instead of choosing the saner, if demeaning path to safety, she had closed the door with herself still inside the cage of the weather witch's mercurial passions, and that so fleeting moment was gone. Now, the fierceness of each kiss proclaimed Storm's pure, unadulterated dominance… and unmistakable carnal desire. The dominance Emma fought against with near desperation, there was that in her nature which could not simply yield. Yet even while she fought, Emma felt every last cell of her body respond to the intensely feral sexual desire with a terrifying and bewildering ache of answering need.

She was too much of an alpha female herself to simply give submission. In the past she'd pretended to submit to others, to win alliance and support within the Hellfire Club before she gained the Lord Cardinal rank of White Queen. However, those times she'd also had full use of her formidable mental powers and had used them shamelessly to let her would be masters believe they had from her what she never truly gave. Once she had become the White Queen, it was she who had held the whip, both figuratively and literally.

Shaw had been the one person she had ever considered worthy to try and master her, the one she would have not have used her telepathy on… And he had been the one person who'd never tried to dominate her sexually. He'd wanted… other things from her. And she could never quite decide if she loved or hated him for that… or perhaps a bit of both. So, somehow in her many and varied adventures in the Hellfire Club, Emma had managed to give nothing more than the illusion of submission to any man or woman. It was an illusion that she quickly stripped from them once she had what she wanted.

Only now, with the inhibitor collar tight on her throat, there was no illusion or glamour Emma could telepathically conjure to falsely satisfy the frightening intensity of Storm's domination. Even if she'd had full access to her telepathy, Emma had a sinking feeling it would not have worked against as strong a will and disciplined a mind as the weather witch possessed. Once more she tasted the fear that what she would not, could not give willingly might be taken from her. And heavens help her, the prospect no matter how she might resist it, heated her blood as nothing else had ever done. Storm's passions were like the forces of nature that were hers to command, raw elemental power that could be merciless in both its devastation and beauty.

While seductively savage kisses drank in Emma's mixed cries of pleasure and pain, Ororo played her helplessly bound body with a virtuoso's skilled mix of caresses and cruelty. Storm had either a far more sophisticated sexual history than the telepath could have imagined, or the weather witch's primal instincts made her a shockingly formidable natural dominant. Either answer was equally alarming, as Emma found herself arching helplessly against the sleek strength of dusky female flesh. Her body flushed with the warm burn of humiliation as she realized how easily the X-men team leader brought out such obvious and undeniably ardent responses from her. Liquid heat gathered low and deep inside as the shame somehow added an even keener edge to every erotic sensation.

Still, the hard fought for pride and drive of her own ambition that had carried her through the darkest of times and places until she attained her place as a Lord Cardinal in the Hellfire Club warred even with her own incandescently flaring desires. Even if Storm's ruthless caresses made her squirm and pant like a prize bitch brought to heat and ripe for rutting, she needed to somehow resist and regain the upperhand. She was after all the White Queen, and no longer the near virginal innocent that had first crossed the Hellfire Club's threshold.

Emma had entered the world's most notorious private club of the powerful and privileged with no more than a school girl's experience of untrained groping and unsophisticated make out sessions, and left with the knowledge that would shame the most experienced courtesan. Tessa had seen to that. As Shaw's protégé, Emma was expected to be sophisticated, and well versed in even the most dark aspects of sexual decadence. Shaw had set Tessa the task of seeing to his budding White Queen's… education. And Tessa, as in all things, had seen to her task with a flawless attention to detail that…

A low, moaning cry escaped from the now shaking telepath as Storm mouth wandered lower, mingling kisses with cruelly playful bites. Emma had been pushed onto her back, and her bound wrists pressed between her and the soft give of the bedding uncomfortably until the material shifted with an alien adaptability that supported the shackled woman in a way that made her resting on her back easier, but restricted her arms even more. It was something that would have caught the White Queen's own predatorily prurient interest at a less distracting time, but now she did not have thought to spare for it other than the realization that she was even more entrapped, and that Storm was taking full advantage of her increased helplessness.

Trying to control her harshly ragged breath, Emma struggled to bring her thighs together in a futile effort to delay what she was not sure she really wanted to prevent. Storm's mouth was hot and moist on the telepath's tender breasts, her teeth catching and marking the fair flesh. Each sharp kiss sending threads of fire to the helpless telepath's trembling loins. When the weather witch fastened onto the aching stiffness of the tightly budded tips Emma couldn't help but whimper and thrash as she felt the strong suck on their sensitive peaks. The following wicked flick of tongue and nuzzling nibbles alternated with cruel and delightful nips that threatened to drive her to madness…

With dark and graceful force, Storm's strong, hands easily overcame the telepath's attempt at resistance with a slow, relentless press that opened the fair, satin skinned thighs and spread them wide apart. Pulling away from the now deeply flushed redness of Emma's full breasts, Ororo studied the wanton display of the blonde woman's sweetly exposed sex. It was an exquisitely beautiful sight. Fair skin flushed rich shades of pink and red, the soft puffy outer lips of Emma's vulnerable, private flesh were sweetly pouty beneath the trimmed fringe of golden fuzz that looked pleasantly wiry. The telepath's sexual excitement was clearly evident with the rich musky scent of her arousal and slick gleaming wetness that brought the eye to the deeply pink grotto that was just teasingly visible in an erotic kiss of pink female folds.

"Pretty." The word left Storm's lips in a low throaty exhale of satisfaction. "And mine."

"No." Emma's adamant statement brought the weather witch's perusal back to the telepath's face, and the shaky determination in ice blue eyes.

"Yes." The unadulterated surety of Storm's voice sent a cool, tingling shock through the helpless telepath.

Storm laughed, and it was a frighteningly joyous sound as she rose up and walked away from the now confused but wary blonde still caught fast on the bed. The darkly beautiful mutant wasn't in a hurry, even though the rich, decadent curl of predatory sexual excitement throbbed strong and hot through her being like the beat of her heart's blood. Ororo was used to the constant sensual rush of her elemental powers, and had long experience with functioning normally without sign of the tempting pleasure that constantly beckoned her to simply let go and lose herself in a frenzy of passion and ecstasy. Years of strict self-discipline that defied description had kept her from indulging in the joys available to her to their fullest extent for fear of the destruction that might follow in the wake of her fulfilled desires.

Now… the noose tight ties of inhibition born of her younger self's fears had slowly worn away as she had matured into the far more confident adult she had come to be. The passions that seethed in her heart of hearts had in their turn grown stronger and more savagely rebellious after such a long confinement. Storm's recent ordeals in the Savage Land and then in the underground mutant gladiatorial arenas had broken away the final barriers that caged the most primal parts of Storm's essence. Now, though her fellow X-men did not really comprehend the change in the teammate they had too long known as serene and selfless, the tiger walked freely in her flesh, and she was unafraid. So, in this interlude between herself and Emma Frost, Storm did not intend to hold back in the slightest. And she was going to take her time to wring the fullest joy out of it.

"End Program Kahn's Grotto. Begin Program, the Arena, subroutine, the Dungeon." 

 

chapter 12

 

Storm frowned thoughtfully as she found the little extra touches Sage had added to the program laid out on a convenient stone shelf. She knew it wasn't part of the original parameters, because she'd crafted this setting herself, privately, and had password protected it to her use alone. She was familiar with this dungeon's every detail, having built it with painstaking faithfulness to her recollections of the place Masque had kept her and Callisto chained like dogs.

Of course, nothing as mundane as a password would keep a certain dark haired cybertpath out, as proved by the new assortment of leather and metal objects of obviously fine, if perverse, craftsmanship. Storm had the uncomfortable feeling that unlike most items created by Shi'ar "hard light", these unexpected additions would be as physically solid outside of the room as they were within. It sent an electric chill through her that Sage had so clearly expected the use of this program, and that she'd anticipated a need for such particular objects of discipline. It was a rather frightening thing, to realize that someone should know her so well as to plan for this when Storm herself had not realized how far, and where her encounter with Emma Frost would lead.

Not that long ago, Storm and Callisto had been kept kenneled in the dungeon beneath Masque's mansion when they were not being put on display in arena challenges or the numerous "victory parties". Though they had been regularly feasted and fêted like barbarian warrior queens after their arena wins, when the last decadent party guest had left, they were quickly returned to their prison to be 'reminded' of their proper place as slaves. The dungeon's archaic design was like something out of a horror movie, gothic arches and dark, rough hewn stone walls kept in a perpetual twilight, the only brightness being the gleaming metal links anchored by sturdy rings bolted to the walls. There were more rings in the ceiling, and special places on the floor as well… Ororo suppressed a shiver as her mind slid unmeaning to all too fiercely vivid memories of both the punishments and rewards that she had to… endure... chained and helpless as pleasure or pain was forced through her by Masques sadistic pets Purge and Paradise.

As with the laboratory where Emma had once held her captive, Storm had recreated her place of imprisonment as part of a cathartic release, or so she had originally let herself believe. There was a darker part of her soul that she had only recently begun to acknowledge which whispered other reasons for making such a place of horrible delights her own. She remembered the shameful scents of fear and arousal that had been thick in the air, the humiliating flood of wetness she had not been able to stop when Paradise's mutant power had flooded her with pleasures so intense and pure it had been a kind of agony. And too she remembered the bite of Purge's torturous touch that had seared her with the kind of pain that defied description. The two Arena mutants had worked her over in tandem, conditioning her… or so they had thought, to blindly obey. They could not have conceived the true, indomitable will that lay with in the weather wielding mutant's soul as she mentally disciplined herself to fully accept the pain and pleasure and all the feelings and emotions they unleashed… and own them all completely.

She remembered Callisto's watchful eye, both sick with sorrow and hard with contempt as the once proud X-men leader who had won the Morlock's grudging respect and obedience, was reduced to a writhing thing that begged with wanton abandon, playing the well broken pet that Masque had desired her to be. And she remembered the far sweeter expression of surprise and feral triumph as the female Morlock realized that the white haired warrior beauty was not tamed in the least, only tempered and made all the stronger for the forging. She'd laughed then, both for the fierce gladness in Callisto's eye, and cool rushing sensation of pure power that flooded her as she truly embraced the raw and elemental passion that lived in her very soul. Of course, they did not remain captives. When the moment had been right, and their allies in place, they'd escaped their bonds, and taken all that had been Masque's by the most primal of laws, right of conquest.

Now, in this setting of all places, Storm intended to play out the role she had been meant to take, and claim something she had long desired, though she had not known it until Sage had handed it to her as a gift. The true claiming… taming… and complete domination of Emma Frost. A rush of heat flooded Ororo as she brushed her hand over the lesser gifts Sage had left for her. Dark graceful fingers closed over a leather wrapped handle with proprietary anticipation.

Disoriented by the latest change of venue, the once haughty White Queen was feeling exceedingly vulnerable. Her senses still reeling from Storm's rough handling; the blonde telepath's full breasts heaved in the dim light feeling slightly sore, but also swollen with strange, aching heat. The fresh pink of her nipples had darkened under the attention of the weather witch's tormenting mouth, and each ravaged, ruddy nub felt so tight and hard it made Emma want to weep. But the worst of it was the liquid burn of arousal between her tightly pressed thighs. When Ororo had simply turned away and left her lying trapped on the bed by herself, Emma had felt strangely… bereft. A sense of frustration and loss so keen it was a kind of pain had run through her.

And then the far too adaptable bed that she'd been lying on had shifted, leaving her sprawled naked and shivering, on an unforgiving, cold and rough stone floor. Emma wrists were still bound behind her; the cuffs had carried over from one program to the next. Only instead of the light, alien materials from before, they were now sturdy leather, fortunately lined inside with soft lamb's wool to prevent damage to delicate skin when the wearer struggled in them… as she was doing now, with a desperate, frantic effort. She'd caught sight of the shelf Storm was perusing with disturbing intensity. Perhaps she'd been too quick to avow her trust and forego use of her safe word. She'd never thought of Storm as one to engage in such exotic pursuits. Somewhere, Tessa was surely laughing over the irony of her forfeit, for Emma was damned whether she used the blasted safe word or not.

The sharp crack of leather striking through the air made the pale blonde telepath jerk in startled shock. Storm s own nakedness was magnificent even in the meager illumination. The silver white of her long, lustrous mane catching the dungeon's dim lighting to give off an almost ghostly glow. There was a smaller echo of that gleam at the juncture of her smooth dusky thighs. Ororo's silky thatch was milky light against the rich warm golden brown of her skin, and framed a beautiful sex that flashed a dusky rose hued slit, promising that the weather witch's most private flesh would yield succulent shades of deep pink and red. Emma was made breathlessly aware of this as the woman she was staring at stood over her, a tightly woven coil of black whip in hand.

"Storm…" For once words failed Emma Frost. Usually at the ready with a dry comment or cutting observation, and all she could think of was how terrible and commanding the weather witch was without even a stitch of clothing. There was a sensual, commanding cruelty in every fine boned line of her face, and burning heat in the electric silver blue of her eyes.

"I did promise you chastisement, did I not?" Storm's voice was low, and intimate, but it seemed to fill the room as Emma took in her words with a sudden feeling of certain doom.

The blonde telepath gave up on trying to free her arms and rolled suddenly, sweeping her legs to knock the weather-wielding mutant's own out from under her. It might have worked against a lesser woman, but Storm's cat like reflexes allowed her to avoid Emma's desperate ploy with insulting ease, and before the former White Queen could fight further, she found herself caught hard against the floor, laid out flat on her stomach while Storm's full weight rested on the knee pressed into Emma's back pinning her.

"You wouldn't dare…" Emma's outcry of disbelief held a slightly hysterical edge as Storm slid the handle of the whip gently over the pale roundness of a quivering hip, "Storm… don't…"

The handle slid between the telepath's legs, the leather capped end rubbing just over the outer lips of her sex, the lightest friction to let her know it was there. "You are fighting so hard Emma, I think you want me to tame down some of that spirited resistance." A slightly harder press of the tip against the hooded, pearl like bundle of finely sensitive nerves, "Is that what you want?" the pressure relented, then increased, "Taming?"

"Go to blazes…!" Emma's growled exclamation ended in a gasp as Storm raised up her free hand and brought it down with a resounding slap on the fullest part of the telepath's bare bottom. Casually, the weather witch rubbed the leather capped tip gently against Emma's sex a final time before she withdrew the teasing whip handle. With a burning shame suffusing her entire being, Emma noted the slight dew of moisture that clung to it as Storm placed the dampness of the arousal against the telepath's parted lips.

"Clean this." The command was voiced with a soft lilt, but it was no less a command.

 

chapter 13

 

With the hard, solid head of the whip handle laid unrelenting against the softness of her mouth, Emma couldn t help but inhale the rich and heady scents of leather mixed with her own very personal excited essence. Electric chills ran like wildfire through her entire body despite the cool press of uncomfortable stone floor beneath her. With Storm s warm knee resting firmly on her back, the former White Queen felt well and truly trapped. With her hands bound behind her, she couldn t even try to push the whip handle away.

Instead she snapped at the offending object, catching it s leather wrapped length in her teeth and pulled her head down, yanking it out of Storm s hand. Before the weather witch could stop her, Emma tossed it away with a sharp twist of her head that made her neck twinge, but the small discomfort was worth it for the sound of Storm s surprised curse. The weather witch would have to move her weight off Emma to retrieve the whip. A small, glow of triumph bloomed in the blonde telepath s breast, but her act of resistance was not without it s cost. Storm s knee shifted away, but before Emma could take advantage of it, a pained cry of distress escaped her as a strong dark hand curled into the champagne pale hair at her nape and yanked her up as the weather witch got to her feet.

That was a foolish, The X-men leader s voice was a mix of irritation and amusement. The first Emma had expected, the second made her wary. Then Storm s voice took on a particular indulgent tone that sent a wave of apprehension through the one time White Queen as familiar words from the past flowed with malicious satisfaction from the soft fullness of Ororo s mouth, The more you fight, the harder you resist, the more this will hurt. I don t want to hurt you my dear. I want us to be friends.

In another time, another place, Emma had said those very words to a captive Storm as she mentally ravished the helplessly bound X-man. Despite the darkly sexual tension that was so tight and hot between them now, or perhaps because of it, the weather witch still held tight to the memory of her brief captivity under the White Queen s not so gentle hands. Wrapped in memories and their ramifications, the blonde telepath couldn t help struggling wildly as Ororo snapped loose the cuffs that bound her wrists together, and reattached them to a ceiling anchored chain. A failed kick later and the ankle cuffs were also attached to their own chains that had enough length to allow her some movement to shift position, but not much else.

Only when Emma was quite secure did Storm take the time to retrieve the lost whip and return to her well displayed captive. The blonde telepath s pale nakedness made an erotically inverted Y, that made the weather-wielding mutant s heart beat faster in her breast. The brief struggle had left them both slightly breathless and the Hellfire Club s one time ruler was still trying to catch her breath while pulling futilely at her restraints. Each effort, as the former White Queen twisted in her bonds threw the fair perfection of her body into high relief against the dungeon shadows. Long time foes, and antagonistic allies they might be, but Storm had never denied that Emma Frost was an extraordinarily beautiful woman.

Seeing her like this though So anxious, furious, helpless and so shamefully, unmistakably aroused, it sent an immediate and fierce ache straight to the core of Ororo s female heat, where she moistened in appreciation and cruel anticipation. She ignored the temptation to run her hands all over the satiny softness of the telepath s ivory skin, exploring Emma s every sweet hill and valley while the blue eyed blonde protested vigorously even as she moaned and sobbed out her pleasure.

No Emma needed to learn a lesson in humility and obedience first. That thought too had it s darkly sweet appeal. A strange excited tension filled the weather-wielding mutant as she ran the length of the braided leather whip through her fingers. The soft white swells of the telepath s bottom trembled as the former White Queen gave a final frustrated yank at her bonds, then stilled as Emma finally stood quietly with a sheen of fear in her eyes, but a practiced sneer on her lips.

Finding your inner dominatrix, Storm? Emma s attempted bravado was nearly flawless, but the flash of vulnerable uncertainty in her pale blue eyes before she pulled her mask fully in place gave her away. I should warn you, to do it well you really have to dress the part.

I don t need the trappings to dominate you, your one time Majesty. Storm s laughter was softly mocking as she slowly circled her the captive telepath. She could feel the tension shimmer off Emma like heat, increasing with each advancing step. When she was close enough to trail the now loose whip over flushed, fair skin, the blonde tried not to tremble as the leather slid in a serpentine caress over her completely exposed and vulnerable breasts.

As the whip brushed teasingly over the tight ruddiness of her nipples, Emma bit her lip to keep from gasping at the teasing sensation made them swell and grow painfully hard. They were still very sensitive from Storm s previous attentions. As if in answer to the blonde telepath s thoughts, darkly graceful fingers reached out to capture one tightly aching bud and pulled it gently, rubbing the tip with a light graze of a thumb. Emma bit harder as sharp, shivery tingles ran from the turgid peak and straight to the heat pooling between her thighs.

Now, I believe we have a little unfinished business. Shall we try this again, or will you need further encouragement?

Once more Storm laid the whip handle over Emma s lips.

Emma glared at the exotically beautiful but unyielding weather-wielding mutant who waited with insufferably serene patience for the telepath s obedience. The captive woman quailed at the possible indignity of having the whip handle simply forced into her mouth if she didn t comply, but she would be damned if she allowed the domineering X-man to believe that Emma Grace Frost was anyone s easy conquest. While a part of her wanted to refuse with mulish stubbornness, she knew that in this she had few if any choices. But she perhaps she could show the arrogant snowy-maned witch there could be obedience in deed but not in spirit.

Meeting Storm s watchful gaze, Emma gave her a look of purest insolence as she delicately extended her tongue. With a slow and heatedly sensual grace she lapped at the underside of the leather wrapped whip handle. She could taste her own unique flavor on the leather, and a hot flush she refused to think about too deeply made her feel strangely dizzy. One wouldn t think that ice blue eyes could smolder, but Emma put a defiant, seething heat into her pale, half lidded gaze and held Storm s silver blue catseye stare while the moist pinkness of her tongue was a soft glistening fascination as it moved sinuously against the black leather.

The blonde telepath stared at the weather witch while caressing the length of it in lingering, seductive strokes. She laved the thickness of it and bestowed a softly wet suckling kiss to the rounded end before taking the handle wholly into her mouth swallowing the length until her lips pressed against the hand that held it. Slowly she pulled away, leaving the length of the whip handle in Storm s hand wetly gleaming in the dungeons dim light.

 

chapter 14

 

Storm watched Emma's mouth move over the whip handle and felt the tight heat that lay low and deep inside her pulse, grow hotter, and ache in sympathy with the wetted leather at every soft, damp stroke of the telepath's skilled tongue. When the pale blonde's pursed lips had pressed over the black leather and slid the length of it down into the suckling warmth of her mouth, Ororo's sensitive pearl swelled with throbbing want where it lay nestled in it's tender protective hood. She imagined the caress of Emma's mouth on her sex instead of leather, and felt herself flush with a creamy anticipation. But she steeled herself against the dark impulse to simply drag the telepath down from her chains and forcefully ride the defiant heat of that taunting mouth.

It was going to be harder than she thought to wait for her own pleasure. Damn the wanton Hellfire bitch for making her too eager, too soon. Storm knew that the former White Queen was challenging her. In simple physical combat there was no question who was the superior fighter, but in sexual warfare...?

Emma was a scion of the Hellfire Club, and was well used to having others succumb to her will, while Storm herself was not so well experienced in sensual excess. Frost was no doubt trusting that her greater sophistication would somehow gain her an upper hand. But this was more than a simple, impersonal sex game. Storm was a true warrior in every way, and recognized Emma's icy sarcasm and aloof mien as more than just arrogance. It was the cool and haughty blonde's shield against the threat of real intimacy. If Storm wanted a lasting victory in her encounter with Emma, she knew there was only one real course of action to take.

"A very pretty, if practiced display." Ororo's voice was rough and low as she took away the whip handle and stared at the soft curving coral of Emma's lips, "Your obedience, belated though it is, should have its reward."

The strangely gentle warmth the weather witch's fingertip traveled lightly along the fine curve of Emma's cheek and down to slowly play feather light strokes gently at her still parted lips. The blonde telepath's breath caught as the softness of her mouth tingled with unexpected sensitivity to Storm's touch. Ice blue eyes were wide when the fingertip fell away and warmth of Ororo's lips hovered to not quite touch Emma's own. Their breath met, and mingled as the delicate tracing of Storm's fingertips trailed down to tease the soft fullness of the telepath's pale breasts. It was the faintest of grazing across heated skin, yet it sent electric shivers sizzling through the blonde telepath, and an almost pained whimper escaped her at the airy softness of the weather witch's touch. Dusky fingers stroked at Emma's tightly aching nipples with gossamer gentleness. Her flesh shivered under the barely there touches, and tingled with a growing burn for firmer contact. The former White Queen shuddered, tension growing tight in her body, as she had to make a conscious effort not to press into Storm's torturously delicate caresses.

Her wrists twisted helplessly in the cuffs that held them over her head,. Emma's breathing grew ragged as she closed her eyes, trying to ignore how very close Storm's mouth was to her own. She could feel the heat from lips that did not quite touch her own. What was the weather witch playing at? She had dared the X-man to do her very worst, and it was this? Did Storm think to break her with… tenderness? It would be laughable… if the almost ghostly brushes of Ororo's fingertips over her skin weren't so utterly maddening. They moved over her breasts, which felt far too heavy and swollen with heat, traced in an almost tickle over her ribs down to her belly and played over the smooth soft curve that lead to the neatly trimmed thatch of blonde that framed Emma's aching sex.

Just the merest brush of Storm's hand fluttered over the outermost edge of the golden fringe, sending a shudder through her hips… and finally the faintest of flicks along the moist seam of her sex which sent an even more intense tingling through her entire body. The havoc it played on her nerves made her knees weaken so much that the chain suspended from the roof was all that kept her steady. Just the merest tip of the weather wielding mutant's finger flirted at the slick groove between the pouting lips of her sex, the lightest rub that traveled the length and back to play with the delicate hood that sheltered the small pearly nub that was pressing out of its protective cover. Almost touches teased at the swelled pink button, circling but never quite making contact with that most sensitive spot.

"Ask for it Emma." Storm's voice was a whisper of warm breath that delved between the telepath's parted lips. "All you have to do is ask."

"No… " The telepath's stubborn refusal was a more a moan than a word.

Moist warmth brushed over trembling lips as Storm's tongue dipped lightly into Emma mouth, and the blonde telepath instinctively met it with her own. In a breath the meeting of their mouths deepened into a kiss. It wasn't a gentle kiss, but fierce and all too brief as Storm deliberately pulled away even as her mouth invited the telepath's to follow with its heat and hunger. Lost in the moment, Emma strained in her chains trying to press forward and reclaim the lost kiss, and the soft growl of protest that she heard was her own.

"Eager, but still… obstinate." Storm's voice held a smug satisfaction that sent a flare of temper through Emma even as her entire body hummed with frustrated arousal. But it was the next words that sent a frisson of alarm through her, and strangely made the arousal even worse. "You've been rewarded for you obedience, but you still need to be punished for your initial show of defiance."

The whip that Emma had forgotten was still in the weather witch's grip, and the serpentine length of its braided tail slid lazily through Ororo's dark, graceful fingers. It was a medium weight snake whip, a type the White Queen had some experience with. And while she'd been spent a few times beneath the lash herself in the course of her time in the Hellfire Club, never had it been in circumstances where control was so completely and utterly out of her hands. Emma's eyes searched Storm's face, and saw the silver blue cats eyes shimmer with a cruel sensuality. Sudden fear flared through the blonde telepath like a hot wash of air followed by chilled wind. But it wasn't the coming bite of the lash that alarmed her… it was the pulse of eager, wet heat between her thighs that quickened as the weather witch cracked the air with a practice strike.

The sharp snap of the leather seemed to plunge into Emma, even though she hung in her chains untouched. The former White Queen closed her eyes for a moment, and prayed the X-men Leader would not look down and see the moisture slicking the pale tremble of her inner thighs. Another crack of the whip, so close Emma started in her bonds, eyes flying open to stare at the exotically beautiful mutant whose silver gaze raked slowly over every exposed inch of the captive telepath. It was painfully obvious the damp gleam of need had not gone unnoticed

"It will only hurt for a moment darling, and afterwards you'll love me for it… with all your heart" Ororo's words held a sensuously evil amusement as she reminded the former White Queen of their fight outside of Xavier's school, when Emma had learned the error of trying to enter Storm's mind against the weather witch's will. Even though Emma was an X-man, it had not stopped her from trying to have her way with Storm's psyche in the midst of battle. To be fair, she'd believed the other woman had initiated an attack on Xavier's school in an attempt to steal one of Emma's children, but right then when her psychic talons had ripped into Storm's soul, she had wanted… Oh how she had wanted…

Emma shivered in her bonds; to have her own words thrown back into her face this way was more than adding insult to injury. It was frightening. When Storm moved behind her, the former White Queen tensed, expecting the worst would happen. But to her surprise and suspicion, the X-men reached up to unhook the telepath's bound wrists from the chain that kept them aloft, then unhooked them from each other, leaving Emma free to move her arms once more. Warily, she shook out her hands, encouraging the circulation that her former position had hampered.

"I'm going to give you a little choice here Emma." Storm's voice was a dark purr of anticipation. "If you can take the punishment I plan for you without fighting me, I won't put the whip to you for your insolence."

"What do you mean?" The dread in the telepath's voice was clear.

"Bend over, Emma." The order was delivered with a soft caress of Storm's hand over the smooth roundness of Emma's bare bottom. "Unless you'd prefer to be chained and whipped instead?"

It was a choice that wasn't a choice at all. After a long, defiant glare, and a half muttered curse, Emma bent over. She grasped her still bound ankles without being told, and waited.

 

chapter 15

 

And waited… and waited….

It was with a furious blush of embarrassment that she realized that the weather witch was taking her sweet time to simply stare at the lascivious presentation of private flesh that Emma's bent over posture displayed. With her legs chained apart in a wide stance, the soft secrets of her sex were completely unprotected. The soft pouting outer lips were plumped and sensitive from the recent teasing, and parted just enough to show the rich pinkness of the tender inner lips that glistened moistly in the dungeon's dim lighting. It was a terribly open and lewdly inviting pose.

Heat flushed the blonde telepath's fair complexion, burnishing her paleness with a warm, humiliated glow as she felt the exposed slickness of her slit part a little more with the growing wetness of arousal. Simply knowing Storm was seeing her this way… From between her legs Emma could watch Storm's darkly graceful hands toy with the whip as the weather witch's silver blue eyes appraised the canvas of the captive telepath's exposed and vulnerable flesh. Emma closed her eyes in pure mortification, and bit her lip to stop the soft moan of despair she felt curling in her throat.

It was while she wasn't expecting it that the first strike resounded through the room, and Emma jerked in bonds with a yelp of pure surprise. Instead of the slash of the whip, as she half feared would come despite Storm's offer, it was the flat of the weather witch's hand that smacked sharply against the soft roundness of her unprotected bottom. It was more disbelief than pain that had caused Emma to cry out. The telepath felt an even greater burn of humiliation as it fully sank in that of all punishments that the weather wielding mutant could have chosen, Storm was meting out the simplest of and most degrading of children's chastisement on her. She was being spanked.

The beginning blows came at a slow, almost lazy pace, alternating over the entire area of Emma's exposed buttocks. The pauses were just long enough to allow the sting of each swat to fade before a new one cracked across fair skin to turn it an increasingly rosy shade. Despite herself, the former White Queen began to squirm as the swats gradually increased in speed and intensity so that the sting instead of fading began to blur into a longer, more intense ache that burned with the rise of her blood to the surface of her skin. Even without seeing it herself, Emma knew her bottom was taking on a cherry red glow. The now acutely painful throb of reached an intensity that made her forget her pride and cry out in true distress. Abruptly the blows stopped, but the burning sensation of her bottom seemed to flare hotter in their absence and Emma's grip on her ankles tightened to keep herself from reaching back to sooth her tormented nether cheeks.

Her entire body seemed hyper aware, that the simple press of air on her bare skin sent chilly tingles through her that raised a pebbling of goose flesh on her trembling arms. When an unexpectedly cool and soothing touch stroked across the soreness of her bottom, the blonde telepath cried out and nearly let go. A soft, sobbing whimper sounded through the room, and Emma choked back another when she realized it was her. She wasn't going to cry. Not now that it was over. She wasn't going to cry over a spanking of all things, no matter how much her bottom hurt. Another soft, cool stroke ran over the painful heat, and Emma gulped for air as the tenderness began to blend into the pain, changing the intensity from discomfort to… Oh…

The soft stroking continued, easing the agony to a bearable soreness and the former White Queen squirmed now not from pain, but an entirely different discomfort that was throbbing through her in warm waves of need. When Storm's fingers slid gently, but firmly into Emma's sex the cry that escaped her was not from distress. Slowly the long, dark grace of the weather witch's fingers pumped into the now shivering pale blonde woman, testing the tightness and torrid wetness of the telepath's most intimate place. Her breath turned to gasping pants as she felt her body's betrayal, the eager way her flesh closed on the deeply probing touch, grasping desperately at Storm's invasion and convulsing tightly. And then abruptly, just as she was teetering on the edge of relief, the stroking touch withdrew and Emma's loud sob of protest echoed through the room.

"Very good, my pet." Storm's voice was strangely thick, her own arousal obvious.

The revealing tone in the weather witch's words was something that the one time White Queen might have fastened on as a weakness to exploit, but at the moment Emma wasn't able to concentrate on anything other than her body's own frantic, frustrated need. She'd never been forced into such heated arousal like this and then denied the release that she now felt desperate for. But she would be damned if she begged Storm of all people… Emma's felt tears wet her face and to her horror heard a soft sobbing she couldn't quite control.

A strong hand curled firmly into the nape of the telepath's champagne blonde hair, and Emma's grip on her ankles broke as she found herself being hauled up, limp as a kitten to face her tormenter. Storm's kisses were gentle this time, soft around the sobbing gulps of air that Emma tried to swallow. Soft lips and the tender warmth of the weather witch's tongue as she kissed away the tears and swallowed the small noises Emma couldn't stop making. Slowly she calmed down in Ororo's embrace and found herself returning it with a fevered intensity, her hands sliding over the supple softness of the other woman's lithely toned body. The sleek line of Storm's back, the lush swell of her dusky hips, the tender curve of the weather witch's taut stomach… And before they could go any farther Emma's hands were caught in a firm, unbreakable grip that once more bound her cuffed wrists together. With an anguished cry of denial, her ice blue eyes wide with realization, the captive telepath twisted and fought as her arms were forced upwards once more to be chained overhead.

"Storm, you can't do this! You said if I didn't fight the punishment you wouldn't…" Emma's frantic protest was cut off by a last, possessive kiss as Ororo took her mouth with a kiss so heated and deep that it seared her to the soul.

"I'm not going to whip you for being defiant." Storm released the dazed woman and moved to take a position behind the trembling telepath that would allow her to be… creative. Her voice was a low, dark sound that caressed places in Emma that made her quiver with a terrible mix of dread and want. "But I am afraid you are going to be whipped."

"But…" Emma's confusion and rising fear were clear in her voice, "why?!"

"Because I want to." Storm's answer shocked through the former White Queen like the sudden strike of lightening from a clear sky. "I am going to put my mark on you, Emma Grace Frost. Unless… you have something to say…?

Emma's heart hammered fast in her breast. This wasn't happening, it couldn't be happening. Despite all that had come to pass since Tessa had given her over to the weather witch's not so tender mercies, Storm was above all things an X-men. Surely her play with the whip was only an empty threat meant to frighten, no more…?

"You wouldn't dare!" The words burst from her in a heat of denial.

There was a long pause, a provoking silence broken only by the harsh sound of the telepath's own breathing as she tensed in her bonds, waiting. As the seconds ticked by, Emma slowly forced herself to relax. A nervous urge to laugh or sob bubbled in her throat, but she quelled it with an act of will that left her trembling instead. She could still feel the heat of Storm's kiss coming off her outstretched body in waves, and the sore ache of her reddened nether cheeks throbbed still. She felt so tender, so raw… surely the X-men leader couldn't be so cruel as to whip her now…

The snap of leather snaking through the air brought the air out of her lungs in a gust of disbelief as Emma pulled on the cuffs binding her wrists frantically. For a moment, she felt nothing but what seemed to be a cool stroke across the aching flesh of one nether cheek, it was a heart beat before it became a stinging line of fire that had her crying out in earnest. The sear of the lash washed through her like nothing she'd ever felt before. Tear of pain ran freely as she shut her eyes. She'd been whipped before, but not like this. With her telepathic powers, Emma had been able to finesse things so that those who had meant business when they had taken the whip to her only thought they were disciplining her harshly.

The only one the then fresh and nubile blonde telepath had not been able to affect had been Sebastian's pet, Tessa. How that had frightened a much younger Emma, when she'd first learned she could not fool the enigmatic, dark haired cyberpath. Fortunately, Tessa plied the whip mostly in a teaching capacity, in the earliest days of Emma's Hellfire Club training. It had been a necessary evil that Emma had suffered with a determined endurance. There had been much in those early days that she dared not think on too long. Things that she had willingly accepted, perhaps even found pleasure in, that she would never have sought out on her own if not for the power that being even a Pawn in the Hellfire Club member offered. Not that she'd settled for being anything less than the ruling lady, the reigning White Queen. And it was mindful that Emma was being groomed for a position of power as Sebastian's protégé that Tessa had perhaps been kinder with the whip than she had to be. Even so, the mentat's cool and precise strokes had stung like blazes. Tessa had caused Emma to embarrass herself with what she had thought then was her most demeaning loss of control ever.

Until now.

The second lash followed on the other nether cheek, mirroring the first. Emma let her pain sound out with the wordless howls of protest that she could not have bitten back even if she had wanted to. It was better scream now, rather than have the weather witch take the lack as a challenge to do worse. Her shrieking cries were a counterpoint to the sharp crack of leather that slowly began to stripe her reddened ass cheeks in a crisscross pattern as Storm began the first of a series of decorative X marks. Each strike burned like the very hellfire that the former White Queen had claimed dominion over once she took up the deceptively pristine white mantle. Each fiery line interlaced with the ones before, and together they ran along the sides of Emma's buttocks and just below on the creamy white of her upper thighs. The last brought furiously high pitched shrieks followed by open sobbing from the woman trying desperately to twist away from the strokes that she could not escape.

The lashes didn't break the skin, but the lines of darker red showed up in stark contrast against the normal fairness of the pale blonde's skin. Storm stopped for a short while to admire the look of the display, and to rest her whip arm. Callisto had taken great pains and time to teach her the proper use of the whip after they'd freed themselves from Masque's possession. She'd done so without asking why her fellow Arena captive had been so interested in the art, but the knowing smile on her lips had let the wind rider know that the Morlock had her private suspicions. Ororo made a promise to herself to thank the warrior woman properly the next time they met. Callisto was nothing if not thorough in her lessons, and Storm had gained from the mutant gladiator's hard-edged expertise no small skill of her own. It was a skill that Emma Frost now was receiving the benefits of, though she was not nearly so appreciative at the moment.

The blonde telepath hung from her cuffed wrists, noticeably trembling from the aftermath of the last few lashes. Storm, in her innermost thoughts, had to confess some amazement that the former White Queen had withstood first the spanking, and then the whipping without using her safe word. Ororo hadn't expected to lay down more than a few lashes before the woman who cultivated the appearance of a richly pampered, if hedonistically jaded socialite surrendered her pride and used the word that would set her free. That Emma had not, for all her cries and struggles… A fiercely delighted warmth flooded through Storm, as well as a wave of possessive pride that startled her when she recognized it for what it was. Biting her lip, the weather wielding mutant examined her own unexpected feelings.

When she had first thought to have her revenge on Emma Frost, she had not anticipated the potently sexual turn that things would take. But Storm was not one to deny an obvious truth, no matter how perplexing, or darkly disturbing. Even this unmistakably painful punishment was rich with sexual excitement, and the feelings of arousal she could sense in both Emma and herself were only becoming more intense. The captive telepath's parted thighs gleamed with and abundance of fresh wetness, her sexual scent was so thick in the air Storm could taste it, and it brought an answering flood of slick heat between Ororo's own thighs.

It should trouble her that she found Emma's suffering so arousing. But Ororo couldn't deny how very beautiful the telepath was now, softly sobbing in her chains. The lushness of her body was so very vulnerable, gloriously naked, and spread out in a provocative display of pure accessibility. With the stark red marks of Storm's measured, claiming violence upon her flesh, the one time White Queen looked so appealing it made the weather wielding mutant's heart hurt. She did not think she had ever wanted anyone so badly as she wanted Emma right here and now. Dropping the whip, Storm walked to weeping telepath and with just a breath of her mutant power brought a soft, cool breeze to sooth the stinging stripes left by the whip. Emma's back arched at the sensation, her face, dazed with confusing mix of pain and relief, turned to the weather wielding mutant.

"Does it hurt so very much?" Storm's words were softly solicitous as she stroked the now sweat dampened strands of Emma's fine pale hair away from her face.

Between hiccupping breaths, ice blue eyes shining with tears and a conflicting mix of emotion, Emma struggled weakly for her trade mark sarcasm, "Whatever makes you think it hurts?"

Storm's other hand slid down between pale, parted thighs to rub possessively against the source of the telepath's wetness. "Because you're weeping."

Emma's unrestrained whimper of arousal at the touch brought Storm's mouth to cover hers with a slow, deep kiss. Small noises of need keening in her throat, the former White Queen kissed back. Trying to convey her heated desperation the only way she could, with the soft and demanding heated touch of lips and tongue. Her entire body was in a hyper aware state, the lingering sear of pain from the lashes only underscoring the now burning desire that engulfed her entire being. Something that she hadn't realized was in her shifted.

When the weather witch pulled away, Emma couldn't help the slow, racking sobs that followed. It wasn't the pain she was crying from, not really. But somehow, it was as if every sorrow she had ever swallowed and refused to acknowledge was pushing it's way out from her now, pouring from her in a cascade of fierce weeping that left her sore and weak… She had lost track of time as she wept, but when she felt her wrists become unlatched from the over head chain, and released, Emma fell into the female X-man's embrace feeling completely wrung out, yet… strangely at peace.

And incredibly, still burning with pure and unadulterated need. What had the weather witch done to her? Emma tried to not let her confusion show on her tear stained face, but when she felt herself being swept off her feet into Storm's strong arms and carried somewhere, instead of struggling she relaxed against the woman holding her, simply content to be pressed against the warmth of Ororo's body. She turned her head, which rested against one smooth, creamy chocolate shoulder; just enough to press a small, soft kiss against the smooth column of the woman's throat.

 

chapter 16

 

The air of the observation lounge was controlled with precision automation for it's sole inhabitant's comfort. Yet, even though she knew the temperature and humidity had not altered from it's coolly refreshing operations by so much as a degree, the woman named Sage felt the moist sheen of sweat on her skin as blushing heat suffused her face. Her custom fitted black leathers felt far too warm, their tightness too confining. White teeth gently worried her lower lip as the cyberpath tried to focus only on evaluating the stream of incoming data and not her own body's unexpectedly intense response to the dark eroticism of the feed.

Yes, she'd anticipated feeling some… sexual sympathy. How could she not? The probability of the passionate tension between Storm and the former White Queen reaching a flash point had been a near certainty. By arranging the perfect setting and providing the right cues, the Hellfire Club's darkly enigmatic Tessa had planned for that coming confrontation to be both contained and… controlled. Properly guided, what might have been only a mindless, brutal brawl could be made to serve the better interests of both the X-men and the Hellfire Club. Indeed, the right culmination of Ororo and Emma's innate tendencies and powerful urges would serve… a variety of purposes.

What she hadn't counted on was being so drawn in by fervor of the primal desires unleashed by her own machinations. In the several years she'd been part of the Hellfire Club, Tessa had orchestrated, overseen and experienced a multitude of sexually charged encounters. And while not completely unaffected by the temptation of the senses that no few of those adventures had offered, never had Tessa felt so intimately invested as she spied upon these two exceptional and exquisite women. Her mouth had grown desert dry as Ororo mastered Emma's vulnerable body and spirit with the kiss of a whip as much as the seductive caress of her hands… the heated demands of her mouth…

The expected flutters of light arousal as she watched and took measure of the two women's every move and motion, each word, whisper, sigh and scream… had surprised the dark haired cyberpath by fanning into a powerful ache that throbbed through her with every heartbeat. Her breath hitched softly as she shifted ever so slightly in her seat. The damp evidence of how deeply affected she was had wetted the inside of her leather clad thighs. A shiver of disquiet thrilled through the woman who prided herself on her usually imperturbable demeanor, and dispassionate observations.

For the briefest moment Tessa let her eyes close, barely a moment of long dark lashes closed over the feverishly bright indigo gaze that had seen with keenest precision the ardent depths of the proud and arrogant White Queen's response to Storm's deliciously ruthless claiming. And now that the X-men's silver white maned leader had at last taken the shaking, need weakened telepath into her arms, the cyberpath had no doubt that Storm was going to at last consummate the unspoken promise of shared passion her every look and touch had made to her long time nemesis.

The dark haired woman felt the slight stirring of shame for spying upon Storm, and tried to harden her heart against it. If there was anyone Sage owed a measure of respect and consideration it was the weather wielding X-man who had reached out at great personal risk to herself, to rescue someone she'd been led to believe was an enemy, while the ones that Sage had come to depend upon as allies had abandoned her in her greatest hour of need. The value the cyberpath placed on Storm's selfless deed knew no bounds. Yet still, no matter what she might owe the silver white haired heroine, Sage could not even contemplate leaving Ororo her privacy now… especially now.

These explicit, intimate details of unmistakably private moments of her rescuer, her one time team mate, her… friend And it troubled her that it might not be for purely impersonal reasons.

Dark blue eyes scanned the sensor readings that allowed her to know everything that happened in the "Pleasure Room" to the smallest detail. Frowning, Sage combed through the data, her heart dropping and pulse frantically racing as she realized the impossible had happened. Though it had hardly been a blink, somehow in that briefest of moments that she had closed her eyes, Ororo and Emma had completely, and impossibly …disappeared.

to be continued?

**Author's Note:**

> because you made it to the end...
> 
> Emma's safe word ^_~ if you were curious...
> 
> ... Goddess


End file.
